Frederic Vasseur has put a hold on the hype of pushing Oliver Bearman to a Ferrari F1 seat just yet, even though he has praise for him.
Having handed a surprise debut to Ferrari reserve Bearman in F1 Saudi Arabian GP and seeing a solid return from the youngster, the push for the Brit to a certain spot on the grid whether at the Italian outfit and or other has risen to next level.
With Ferrari gearing up to welcome Lewis Hamilton in 2025, questions have already begun about Bearman too after his Saudi Arabia outing. But Vasseur has put any talk of it on hold and tried to persuade media and alike to not hype the situation just yet.
Instead, Vasseur wants everyone to focus on Bearman’s F2 programme and go back to the drawing board of him being a reserve, where he is to get FP1 outings with Haas and Ferrari too. “Don’t start to speak about after Lewis Hamilton, Lewis is still not in the team,” he said, when asked about Bearman’s chances.
“But it’s a good signal for Ollie for sure, it’s an important milestone. In Melbourne and Imola he will be back on the F2 project, and the most important challenge for Ollie will be this one. He will start soon the FP1 sessions with Haas, and this will be important also for us to give him experience and mileage in the car.
“But for sure with this one, he has the result in the pocket already. You have to consider Jeddah is a step, not the final target. He did well during the weekend, but he will have other challenges in front of him in the future with F2. As I said, he will do a couple of FP1s with us and Haas during the season and all of you, including me, in six months’ time we won’t speak any more about Jeddah, we’ll speak about Mexico, Brazil, and if he’s doing well or not.
“And every single day will be a new challenge. But for sure, if he’s keeping the same approach as today, it will go well,” summed up Vasseur, who also explained why Ferrari opted not to have the likes of Antonio Giovinazzi or Robert Shwartzman at race weekends outside their own WEC programme, while entrusting the job to Bearman instead.
“I took the decision in the winter because I found it a bit stupid last year to ask Antonio to do 22 or 24 races when he was doing in parallel the LMH programme,” said Vasseur. “The LMH is quite important for us – it’s a huge challenge – and I don’t want to ask Antonio or Shwartzman to travel with us and to do F1 the week after Qatar, and a race in between.
“It’s why we decided when Ollie’s with us, he will be the reserve, and when he’s not with us, he’ll be in the sim,” summed up Vasseur. Actually, both Bearman and Giovinazzi had a test session for themselves at Fiorano this week, driving the F1-75.
Here’s Ferrari undertaking private testing
Here’s Oliver Bearman on help from Lewis Hamilton
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