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Ferrari has a new British driver and it is not Lewis Hamilton.
Carlos Sainz Jr. was ruled out of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix with appendicitis that required surgery on Friday and Ferrari handed 18-year-old Oliver Bearman his Formula 1 debut hours before qualifying. He ranked 11th.
“Carlos is out of surgery. Everything went well and now he is resting in the hospital. We send him all our support for a quick recovery,” Ferrari said on Friday.
The team promoted Bearman, its British reserve driver who normally competes in Formula 2, for the remainder of the race weekend beginning with third practice on Friday.
Bearman was tenth fastest in practice and looked equally at home in qualifying later in the day. Small errors caused him to lose the third and final session to dispute the top 10 positions by less than a tenth of a second. Bearman apologized to Ferrari over the radio, but received warm praise from his new teammate Charles Leclerc.
“He’s done an incredible job,” Leclerc said. “I can’t imagine how special it is for him to get the call this morning and get into a Ferrari on a circuit like this. I hope we can score good points so that he keeps those memories in his mind forever.”
Bearman will become the third-youngest driver to start an F1 career, behind only Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll, who were 17 and 18, respectively, when they debuted.
Starting Saturday’s grand prix would make Bearman the youngest driver to race for Ferrari, breaking a record set in 1961 by Mexican Ricardo Rodriguez, who was 19 at the Italian GP.
Ferrari will have its first full-time British F1 driver this century when he is a seven-time champion Hamilton replaces Sainz for the 2025 season.
Bearman previously drove two practice sessions in Mexico and Abu Dhabi last year as a test driver for the Haas team. He qualified on pole position in F2 this weekend, but will not take part in that event again.
The difference in speed between the two series became clear on Friday. F1 champion Max Verstappen’s pole lap was almost 15 seconds faster than Bearman’s F2 pole lap the day before.
Sainz took part in both tests on Thursday in Saudi Arabia, posting the sixth and seventh fastest times, but said he was feeling unwell and that it was affecting his driving.
“Obviously a very difficult day after feeling unwell, the last 24 hours have been hard and difficult for me,” Sainz said on Thursday. “Today was about trying to get on the track and learn as much as possible about the car without pushing the limits too much, as I wasn’t on the ideal side yet.”
Sainz’s next opportunity to return to F1 is on March 24 at the Australian GP in Melbourne.
“Get well soon,” Williams driver Alex Albon wrote to Sainz on X, formerly Twitter. “I know a good surgeon if necessary.”
Albon missed the Italian GP in 2022 with appendicitis, giving replacement Nyck de Vries an F1 debut, and returned in the following race in Singapore.
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