The young British talent signed by the Ferrari Driver Academy made his official Formula 1 debut in FP1 on Friday behind the wheel of Kevin Magnussen’s Haas after testing the SF21 at Fiorano just over two weeks ago.
Bearman was the fastest among his five Formula 2 peers taking part in the session, ending with the fifteenth fastest time. Sitting in sixth place in his rookie campaign in the series, the Prema driver has taken four race wins so far, including a very prestigious Feature Race win in his team’s home race at Monza.
The FDA driver was very pleased after his outing. He finished the session 0.345s slower than Nico Hülkenberg, impressing many on the day with his speed.
“My first goal was just to have a clean session, and we did that, which is the main thing, so I’m really happy to deliver a clean session, to start with,” Bearman commented on his feelings after his official Formula 1 debut.
“But second of all, I got up to speed quite fast, I felt that I had really good confidence with the car. More or less I’m happy, I mean, you know there is always a few things that… It was my first time doing everything, my first time on the soft tyres, my first long run.
“So I would do better the second time, but for a first time I was quite happy.”
Asked on how was he dealing with the entries at turns 1 and 4 on his first run, the 18-year-old, who is heavily rumoured to return in Formula 2 next year with Prema alongside Andrea Kimi Antonelli, admitted to being surprised by the speed and braking performance:
“Yeah, you don’t realise how fast you’re going until you hit the brakes, and then you’re like ‘oh wait, I’m not going to hit the apex’,” he said with a laugh.
Photo credit: MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
Bearman admitted he needed some laps to get used to the lack of visibility in F1 cars: “Also the visibility is really tough. I was actually struggling, especially in the first laps, to get my bearings.
“You have to kind of doing it by feel rather than by sight, so that was quite an interesting kind of new thing to get used to.
“And yeah, those heavy braking [zones], so I wanted to get confidence straight away, and be strong, and I’d rather go over than slowly buliding up.”
The test on the Italian track wasn’t nearly as challenging as the peculiar track conditions he drove in here in Mexico, as he expanded on his feeling with the track and with grip.
“Obviously I’ve tested the 2021 car a couple of weeks back, and that was peak grip, peak performance. With this altitude and track conditions, especially to start with. We were also on an unknown tyre, the prototype, it was quite slippery out there. Felt like I was in F2 again, so that was quite nice.
“And as the track got better and better, I just kind of went with it. The thing that surprised me was how much quicker you arrive at Turn 1 on a quali sim rather than the race. My first push on soft, I probably left a bit of margin there.”
Bearman’s first lap on the softs was ruined by pushing a bit too hard through the sequence of corners from turns 7 to 11. The 2021 Italian Formula 4 Champion explained how challenging he found that specific area.
“I wanted to do a good one, I wanted to go to what I felt was the limit. I was a bit weak in Turn 7 in performance on the hard tyre, so I decided, I have confidence with the car, let’s see what I can do.
“I was a bit out of shape out of Turn 7, and then the whole sequence was in trouble, so I had to abort that lap unfortunately. For sure, with the soft that we have the first lap is the fastest, so that’s a bit unlucky.”
The Prema driver also discussed the areas where he could chip away at the gap to Hülkenberg after getting some feedback from his engineer Mark Slade.
“I feel like braking came quite fast. I was pretty strong in Sector 1 straight away. High speed is the thing where you need to find the confidence and of course with a car that is not mine, I didn’t want to go too hard.
“The thing is, every time he told me where to improve, it was clear. I just had to try and get the right rhythm through Sector 2 in the high speed corners with the kerb usage, and I only really did that on my last lap.
“And if you look at my last lap it wasn’t even really that good. So yeah, I knew what I needed to work on, but it’s nice to have a bit of confirmation from the engineers.”
