A work in progress: Oliver Bearman on why he’s keeping it simple in his rookie Championship attack

14 July 2023

In many ways, drivers are two different sides of a coin and PREMA Racing’s Oliver Bearman is no exception. Bubbly and good-natured with a cheeky sense of humour, the youngest driver on the 2023 Formula 2 grid draws those around him with ease as he sat down to chat ahead of his home weekend in Silverstone.

Yet once the visors go down and the lights go out, nobody can doubt Bearman’s inner spark is ready to set the track alight.

In just four years, the Briton has had a meteoric rise, shaking off the training wheels in his 2020 Formula 4 debut to F2. One of the most consistent performers from last year’s nail-biting Formula 3 campaign, Bearman’s elevation to the second tier was the natural pathway for a driver who scored one win and seven podiums, finishing only seven points off Champion Victor Martins, in third.

Heralded as a star in the making, the weight of expectation and discussions of his future have never been far away from the Ferrari junior. Yet despite being just 17 years old at the time the opening race weekend rolled around in Sakhir, he was far from naïve about the task that awaited him…

“Obviously, I was confident considering my form in the latter half of the F3 season and the fact that I adapted quite well to F3,” he noted. “I knew the step-up would be hard. I wasn’t underestimating it because I know this is a very difficult Championship, but I was quite confident in my ability to adapt fast, it’s a strength I feel I have.”

“Going into the season, we didn’t’ have any expectations because I don’t think it’s right to set them, especially being in a new Championship and the team had a difficult season last year. I just wanted to build up my performance each time and that's the same approach I took when I started F3 as well.”

Aiming to mirror last season’s recipe for success, Bearman’s rookie campaign this time around has one stark difference: consistency. He’s already achieved two pole positions and three victories, yet only 10 points-scoring finishes out of a possible 16.

It’s been a case of triumphs tempered by disappointing lows. Not shrinking from holding his hands up to his own mistakes and teething problems, Bearman frankly acknowledges the all-or-nothing nature of the nine rounds so far and knows the situation can’t persist any longer.

“That's kind of the story of my season. First thing is that the pace has been there since the beginning. I think we've had the ability to be inside the top five in every race weekend so far, even if for a number of reasons, we haven't – like in Bahrain, Monaco, and Austria. The races were the thing that took me a bit longer to understand, the tyre wear and the tyre management, but I feel like I’ve quite got my head around that now.

“I feel like it's been a season of highs. Of course, I've had two pole positions and won three races, but I think the problem is the lows, the fact that I've only had three podiums in F2 and they've all been Race wins. It looks good on the surface, but I want some podiums as well. I'm not saying I don't want to win races, but I want to be there in P2 and P3. That's the story of winning the Championship - you need to be consistent and that's something that we've missed so far. So, I'm still working on it, it's a work in progress.”

Crucially, he’s had to deal with the unpredictability and unforgiving nature of racing. Luck can swiftly turn against you as quickly as it favoured you, such as the contact with Théo Pourchaire in Jeddah and a pit lane tangle with Isack Hadjar in Melbourne.

Accepting that sometimes it’s not going to be your day, the PREMA driver admits that the frustrations bubbled over in the early phase, but that he’s working on keeping his composure come what may.

“I think I've understood there are a lot of variables out of your control which can go against you, especially with pit stops in the Feature Race. In Austria, I got lucky, but there have been occasions where we've been unlucky. You give everything, you do a good weekend, a good race and you don't have the result to show for it.

“I feel like in F3, if you're the third-fastest car on track, normally you're going to finish in the top three. In F2, it doesn't matter how fast you are, sometimes if luck's not on your side, it's going to go against you. So, I think I underestimated that a bit, but in terms of the difficulty of the Championship, I was quite certain already before I started that it would be a tough job and I'm proving to be correct.

“It’s really important to understand that racing is like that. There are a lot of variables and your result is not always reflective of your performance. That's something that I've come to learn and to try and accept. I felt like at the start of the season I was a bit hot headed if something happened which was against me. I was getting a bit angry and letting it affect my performance. Now, I've tried to stay calm in all the situations and keep a level head, keep my emotions flat and then not let whatever happens affect my performance. For sure, that's a really important learning experience because going into F1, that's even more the case.”

A front-row worthy performance in only his second F2 Qualifying earned some fanfare, but it was another debut around a demanding street circuit that put him on the map like never before. Just 10 days shy of his 18th birthday, Bearman ran the show in Baku. After a blessing in disguise in Qualifying, not even a bent steering because of a brush with the barriers at Turn 2 could deter him from pole.

Well-aware of the limits from then onwards, he snatched back-to-back Sprint and Feature victories to become the Championship’s second youngest winner after Pourchaire and the first to earn a clean sweep, topping every session of the weekend.

“It was like a turning point,” he reflected. “Before that, I hadn't really scored many points, I’d had a few mistakes and was unlucky. In Australia, I was fighting in the top five and I got a puncture in the pit lane completely out of my control. On one side it's a breakthrough. On the other side, it was just finally getting a result to show for the hard work and the performance that we've shown, which was nice.

“I haven't let it change me, I don't feel like from Australia to Baku there was a big difference in my approach, driving or mindset. I just kind of did a similar thing and finally, it started to come together. I was very, very lucky that weekend, especially in the Sprint Race, but in the Feature, we were clearly the fastest on track and we controlled it very well. On the other hand, going into Barcelona, we did the same thing on Sunday. We've shown that it's repeatable, now I just need to repeat it more often.”

Whilst his hunger for victory is somewhat sated after four rounds and following a second mature performance from pole in the Barcelona Feature Race, Bearman knows he’s still got a lot to prove. The leading rookie in the Standings, the Briton sits fourth, 47 points off of his experienced teammate Frederik Vesti with a maximum of 195 points on offer across the final five rounds.

Eager to become a reliable and regular performer, over a flash in the pan success, he believes that evolution rather than a complete overhaul will be the key. Instead of a Bearman 2.0, he’s determined to continue his step-by-step process, meet his aims and the desired results will follow, as long as he sticks to his mantra – keeping it simple.

“The F3 win was even more the case because I waited so long, we’d been fighting and I’d been so close to winning a race so many times. In F2, my first podium was a win, so that's always nice. I don't really mind if I don't win a race. If I win a race, it doesn't really change much for me, it's more the points which matter. Last year, I had a season of consistency. This year it's been a bit less so, with some higher highs and lower lows. The starts of the seasons were both pretty similar, a lot of inconsistencies and some errors. In the second half, I really need to get my head down and pick up those podiums which are not P1.

“We’ve seen my good days put me on the front row, put me on pole position and win, but on my bad days so far, they’ve not been good enough. I just want my bad days to be in the points, in the top five or six and that's how you can build a Championship challenge. That's what the rest of the season is focusing on and that's what's motivating me.”

He continued: “There’s no reason why we can't fight for the Championship. I don't see why not, but also, it's not what I'm focusing on. My goal is to just keep improving, keep driving faster and if I tick those boxes, I'm sure I’ll be fighting for the Championship. I think if you focus on fighting for the Championship, you lose sight of the short-term goals. I'm working race by race, session by session to get the best out of that and we’ll look at the Championship in the last weekend.

“Keeping it simple! That's what I told myself at the start of the year and maybe I didn't really do a good job in that. The more rounds I do, the more races I do, the more I understand the importance of just keeping it simple, focusing on the short-term race by race and just doing your best. Don't worry about the Championship. Don't worry about what the others are doing. Focus on yourself, improve your level and that will bring you up there.”