Ollie Bearman overshadows Max Verstappen on F1 debut in Saudi Arabia

Max Verstappen took a commanding pole for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but the attention in Jeddah was gripped by a remarkable debut in Formula One for the 18-year-old British driver Oliver Bearman.

Standing in for the appendicitis-stricken Carlos Sainz at Ferrari, Bearman stepped up with immense maturity and skill to claim 11th on the grid and give definitive notice of his talent.

On Saturday Bearman will enter the record books as the youngest British driver to compete in an F1 race and he will also be the first English driver to race for Ferrari since Nigel Mansell in 1990. He was called up by Ferrari at short notice on Friday when Sainz was diagnosed with appendicitis and since which the Spaniard has undergone successful surgery.

Verstappen took a deserved pole, that much was all too ­predictable and it was ominous again, three-tenths clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in second, with Red Bull’s ­Sergio Pérez third but it was ­Bearman who caught the eye.

His performance was enormously impressive, particularly on the high-speed and demanding Jeddah circuit which is unforgiving and intimidating. Given he was in a car he had never driven before until on Friday and having previously completed only two hours of practice in F1, this was a hugely confident statement of intent for a driver who will likely earn an F1 seat next season.

“I woke up preparing and thinking about my F2 race and then I got chucked in the deep end for an FP3 and qualifying,” he said. “It was such a fantastic opportunity, a bit disappointed with everything but it was a fun day out there.

“In F2 you drive at the limit of the car, in F1 it is to the limit of the driver, it is what the driver is prepared to do and that is a great feeling and it takes some time to get used to but it was super fun.”

The prowess he displayed was nonetheless not unexpected. Bearman is competing in F2 this season but was drafted in due to his role as Ferrari’s reserve driver and he has long-promised great things.

He took part in a practice session in Mexico for Haas in 2023 and demonstrated an immediate affinity for the unique demands of driving an F1 car. He finished there quicker than the double world champion Fernando Alonso, while in a car that was the slowest on track last year and was only 1.6 seconds off Verstappen who was head and shoulders quicker than the rest of the field all season.

Bearman comes from a family of racers, with his grandfather, uncle and father all competing and he took to karting in 2013 when he was eight. On the shift to single seaters he won both the German and Italian F4 titles in 2021 at the end of which he was taken on by Ferrari as part of their academy. After a single season in F3 he was promoted to F2 last year, when he finished sixth, and will continue to race in the championship this season with the Prema team.

On Friday he had only one practice session to drive the track before qualifying but the teenager from Chelmsford adapted with alacrity and skill to an intense and high-pressure environment. In Q1 he delivered a solid run as he got to grips with the track to claim ninth. During the second session he was pushing hard and made two small errors but put in an immense effort on his final run only to miss out on making it to Q3 by three-hundredths of a second.

At the very sharp end, amid the turmoil still surrounding Red Bull and their team principal Christian Horner, Verstappen remained calm when it mattered. He delivered on track and his advantage was once more crushingly large. With the first round in Bahrain considered an outlier in performance terms, to once more be on top in Jeddah was ­demonstrative of the potential pace their car has across a variety of circuits, just as it was last season when they won 21 of the 22 races.

Doubtless Leclerc and Ferrari will do their best to take the fight to them but every indication is that Red Bull and Verstappen will once more be mighty hard to stop on Saturday.

The French driver Doriane Pin drove to a commanding victory from pole to flag in the opening race of the second season of the all female F1 Academy series in Jeddah. This year 10 drivers will represent each of the F1 teams and Pin, driving for Mercedes, held off Britain’s Abbi Pulling, representing Alpine who was second, with Ferrari’s Maya Weug in third.

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were in seventh and eighth for Mercedes, Fernando Alonso was fourth for Aston Martin, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris and in fifth and sixth for McLaren, Yuki Tsunoda in ninth for RB, and Lance Stroll in 10th for Aston Martin.

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Haas’ Nico Hülkenberg suffered a power failure and finished in 15th with his teammate Kevin Magnussen in 13th. Alex Albon was in 12th for Williams and Daniel Ricciardo in 15th for RB.

Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou were in 16th and 20th for Sauber, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly in 17th and 18th for Alpine and Logan Sargeant 19th for Williams.