F1: Oliver Bearman to drive for Haas in 2025

British teenager Oliver Bearman will race for Haas next season after signing a multi-year contract, the American Formula One team announced on Thursday ahead of its home Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Bearman's arrival will give Britain four drivers on the grid, a fifth of the total.

The 19-year-old Ferrari reserve driver will take to the track at Silverstone on Friday afternoon for the first free practice session before handing the car back to Kevin Magnussen for the remainder of the weekend.

This will be the Formula 2 driver's third such outing with the team in 2024.

Bearman made a memorable F1 debut as an 18-year-old with Ferrari in Saudi Arabia last March as a replacement for Spaniard Carlos Sainz, who was sidelined by appendix surgery and finished an impressive seventh.

This makes him the third youngest driver in Formula 1 history, as well as the youngest Briton, and he is still 14th in the 2024 F1 standings and ahead of the Alpine, Williams and Sauber drivers as well as Magnussen.

“It’s hard to put into words how much this means to me,” said Bearman, who will join McLaren’s Lando Norris, Mercedes’ George Russell and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton on the grid.

“To say out loud that I will be a Formula 1 driver… makes me extremely proud. To be one of the few people who can do what they dreamed of as a child is something truly incredible.”

Haas uses Ferrari engines and Bearman has been part of the Italian team's academy since November 2021, a path also taken in the past by Charles Leclerc and Michael Schumacher's son Mick, who made his debut with Haas.

The Briton won the Italian F4 and ADAC F4 championships in 2021 and stepped up to Formula 3 in 2022 ahead of his F2 debut in 2023, where he finished sixth overall with four wins.

Last weekend in Austria he took his first victory of the season in an F2 sprint race.

Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu said Bearman had become “an incredibly mature driver” and the world saw that at the Saudi Grand Prix, where he was called up at the last minute.

“Oliver has proven he is more than up for the task and we have seen this for ourselves by running him in the Haas cars in our FP1 sessions over the last two seasons,” he added.

Haas have yet to confirm their second seat, currently occupied by Magnussen, whose German team-mate Nico Hulkenberg has already been announced as a Sauber driver for 2025.

Haas are seventh of the 10 teams in the championship after 11 rounds.