“If the opportunity's there, take it.”
Biography
Last updated after the Brazilian Grand Prix.
By the Numbers
Career Timeline
Recent Form
Bearman has taken zero points from his last five races. Two retirements, two lapped finishes and a P14 that yielded nothing. That’s a collapse in form that has effectively ended any realistic chance of improving on P13 in the championship before the season closes.
The pattern is stark: he’s been qualifying reasonably, P6 in Brazil and P13 in the United States, but converting that grid position into a result has proved impossible. For a driver still in only his third season of Formula 1, this kind of run is damaging in ways that go beyond the points column.
Latest Race
Bearman finished P17 from P6 on the grid at the Brazilian Grand Prix, ending the race lapped and without a point. Starting sixth represented one of his stronger qualifying performances of the recent stretch, which makes the gap between grid slot and finishing position all the more difficult to account for from the available facts alone.
2026 So Far
Bearman sits P13 in the drivers’ championship with 23 points and the trajectory over the last month has been sharply downward. Having made his F1 debut in 2024 and moved to Haas for 2025, this is his second full season with the team and the points tally suggests the car’s earlier promise hasn’t carried through to the final stretch. There’s no realistic route back into the top ten in the standings from here.
Latest News
Bearman gets Hirakawa as team-mate for Mexico weekend
Oliver Bearman will have an unfamiliar face alongside him for the remainder of the Mexico Grand Prix weekend after Haas made the surprise call to drop Esteban Ocon and replace him with reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa. The Japanese driver had already taken the wheel of Ocon’s VF-26 during Friday’s first practice session as part of the mandatory rookie FP1 programme before Ocon returned for the second session. The team then took the decision to keep Hirakawa in the car for the rest of the weekend, meaning Bearman heads into final practice, qualifying and Sunday’s race with a stand-in team-mate rather than the experienced Frenchman he’s worked alongside all season. For Bearman it’s a disruption to the usual rhythm of a race weekend, though the 19-year-old has shown enough this year to suggest he doesn’t need Ocon as a reference point to perform. Haas haven’t publicly detailed the reasons behind the swap, so the full picture remains unclear, but the decision is a significant one given there are only a handful of races left in the 2026 season. Bearman will be the senior Haas driver in terms of continuity this weekend, which is a strange position to find yourself in as a rookie. How he handles the unusual circumstances in Mexico City could be another useful data point in what’s already been an impressive debut campaign.
Bearman's 2027 Haas seat: confirmed in all but name
Oliver Bearman is heading into his third Formula 1 season with Haas in 2027, even if the paperwork hasn’t been made public yet. The British driver is performing well in his second year with the American outfit and both he and the team are keen to continue their partnership beyond the current campaign. What’s holding up the formal announcement isn’t any doubt about Bearman’s future at Haas: it’s the sequencing of the team’s driver lineup decisions. Haas has already moved to confirm who will replace Esteban Ocon in the second seat for 2027, which makes the absence of a corresponding Bearman announcement feel slightly strange from the outside. The reality is that these things rarely follow a tidy order, and the expectation within the paddock is that Bearman’s retention is a formality waiting on contractual and commercial processes to conclude. For Bearman specifically this is a significant moment in his early career. Staying at one team for three consecutive seasons gives him continuity that many young drivers don’t get, and the chance to carry development knowledge across a major regulation cycle is genuinely valuable. Haas clearly rates him highly enough to build around him rather than shop elsewhere, which says something about how his sophomore season has landed internally. The formal confirmation will come when it comes, but anyone waiting for a surprise twist in this particular story is likely to be disappointed.