As expected, Ferrari junior Ollie Bearman will rejoin this Friday the F1 field in Barcelona where the young Briton will enjoy his second practice outing with the US outfit.
The 19-year-old charger is competing this season in the FIA Formula 2 Championship with Prema.
But Bearman had an opportunity to showcase his outstanding skills in F1 when he substituted for an unwell Carlos Sainz at this year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
This was followed up by an FP1 outing at Imola last month, and he’ll continue his F1 apprenticeship at the Circuit de Catalunya on Friday.
The Briton is rumored to be at the top of Haas’ list of candidates to replace Audi-bound Nico Hulkenberg in 2025, consistent with Ferrari’s habit of placing its young drivers one of its customer teams in F1.
Bearman is scheduled to appear in four more Friday practice sessions later on this season.
But Haas might well opt for a complete reset in terms of its driver line-up for next year, with Kevin Magnussen’s seat now appearing as quite uncertain and with Esteban Ocon in the mix to replace the Dane.
“I don’t particularly have a timeframe, it’s more about getting the right driver for our team,” said Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu when questioned on his outfit’s plans for 2025
Like its rivals, Haas will undertake in Spain the first leg of F1’s first triple-header of the year, with teams travelling from Barcelona to Spielberg and then to Silverstone.
“Spain is the first circuit since we introduced our upgrades which has proper high-speed corners, so I’m really looking forward to assessing our update at that circuit and see what it’s like,” commented Komatsu.
“We have Bearman joining us again for FP1, this time in place of Nico, so he can continue from where he left off in Imola.
“A triple-header is always pretty tough, thankfully a lot of our team is UK-based so it helps that the last race of this triple is in the UK, but it is still very hard.
“It’s getting to that point of the season where everybody’s feeling it, so it’s very important that we look after ourselves to be able to perform at our best, to be efficient and focused, especially on the back of two events where our trackside operations weren’t the best.
“We can’t let that happen, so we need to look at ourselves and see how we can operate at our best.”
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