Komatsu ‘roots’ for Bearman in Ferrari: “It would be a reward for our work”

Convincing beginnings

Selected by the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2022, for two years Oliver Bearman was the bet of the Maranello youth program, as demonstrated by the sudden and impressive debut with the Scuderia at the 2024 Saudi Arabian GP: called up urgently to replace the unavailable Carlos Sainz, the young Briton (in F2 at the time) immediately secured a points finish in Jeddah with 7th place, before repeating a top-10 finish in Baku, this time with Haas. From the following year to today, Bearman has always been part of the American team as an official driver, but on several occasions there have been rumors about his possible promotion to Ferrari.

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Reason for satisfaction

A hypothesis that even Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu does not rule out, and he does not fear Bearman’s departure—quite the opposite. Interviewed by the official F1 podcast, Beyond the Grid, the Japanese manager believes that this transfer should be a source of pride for the work done by the team in managing its young driver: “He has enormous potential – he commented – there is no point in worrying about his possible departure. I firmly believe that we should focus on what we can control. Ferrari has been investing in him for years. We already signed him last year and this year, and if we have done a good job with Ollie Bearman and he performs so well that Ferrari wants him, then we should be satisfied that we have done our job well. We have to focus on ours.”

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Ongoing negotiations between Haas and Ferrari are not secret at all, although Haas, as reiterated by Komatsu, prefers to focus on the current season, which started positively for both the team and Bearman himself (except for the bad accident in Japan), even finishing 5th in China: “It’s just a conversation between us and Ferrari – he added – siamo tutti concentrati sull’ottenere le migliori prestazioni dalla vettura e da Ollie. This could mean losing him next year. Obviously, we hope not, but ultimately we have no control over the situation.”

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