Ollie Bearman delivered one of the best performances of the Bahrain Grand Prix with a drive from last on the grid to a points finish for his Haas F1 team.
Bearman had voluntarily given up his seat to new reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa in opening practice to help Haas meet the requirement to run a rookie in FP1 sessions during the 2025 season, a decision he ended up regretting on Saturday as he failed to find enough pace in qualifying.
The Briton lacked confidence with the car and struggled with front locking, finishing last in Q1.
The result, added to Esteban Ocon‘s big crash in Q2, completed a difficult day for the American team and left Bearman in a very challenging position to score another points finish.
But everything worked in his favour on Sunday and the British driver managed to repeat his Japanese GP result with a 10th-place finish after a superb recovery from the back.
The start
Bearman helped his cause massively right as the lights went off, making a great start and opening lap despite arriving at the first corner surrounded by rival cars.
Bearman benefitted from a great opening lap and first stint to reach the points
Grand Prix Photo
By lap 6, Bearman had risen to P14 after passing the second Aston Martin in Fernando Alonso.
The first stint and safety car
Starting on soft tyres, Bearman extended his first stint more than some of his rivals, finally pitting on lap 14, dropping from seventh to 13th and switching to Pirelli’s hard compound while the majority of the field opted for mediums.
Bearman later capitalised on the safety car that was deployed due to debris on track, pitting again on lap 32 while running in ninth.
The SC period allowed Bearman to switch back to soft tyres for his final stint, again going against what most of his rivals were doing.
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The final push
Bearman maximised the use of his soft tyres to make further progress after having dropped down to 12th following his second and final stop.
On lap 35, he moved up one place as Carlos Sainz (Williams) retired from the race, 10 laps later passing Jack Doohan (Alpine) to move into P10 and into the points with 10 laps to go.
The result kept Bearman’s point-scoring streak going for the third race in a row and, together with Ocon’s eighth place, it allowed Haas to move ahead of Williams in the standings, in fifth position.
