After watching Tommo’s most recent video, his “57 Minute Conversation with Ollie Bearman (I will link it here and highly recommend, great to listen to), it made me realize how much of a talent this young man is. I mean, he’s even younger than I am. I knew about him before and that he was wicked fast from his FP1 sessions with Haas last season but didn’t really know much about him. Here is a brief summary of his junior career so far and then will answer the question of if he is really the “Real Deal”.

He has been racing karts since 2013 when he was eight, but his karting career didn’t really take off until 2016 when he got 2nd the Super 1 National Championship in the UK, and then again in 2017. His first major championship win came in 2019 when he consecutively won the IAME Winter Cup, Euro Series and International Final.

He then started single seater racing in 2020 with US Racing, competing simultaneously in ADAC F4 and Italian F4. He mustered a win in both but didn’t finish higher than 7th in either championship. But then with Van Amersfoort Racing in 2021, he won both, and in grand fashion too. In ADAC F4 he took 6 wins and 11 podiums in 21 races, but the Italian series is where he really shined. He won 8 consecutive races (should have been 10 if not for DSQ for engine alterations) and 11 in total to go with 15 podiums and a masterful 395 points. This gained Ferrari’s attention and he was promptly brought into their Driver Academy.

To this point in his career he had always not performed to his potential in his first year in championships, but then come the second year he would smoke everyone. Unfortunately we didn’t see this in F3 as he only spent one season there. He only got one win but 8 podiums so I am sad to see we didn’t get to see him there a second year because it looked like he was only getting started. 2023 was his first season in F2 and it was fairly up and down. He topped practice in Jeddah and then qualified second for the feature, only to spin on his own which ultimately led to him finishing 10th. The peak moment of the year though, was Baku. He took pole for the feature race, won the sprint from 9th, and then won the feature race as well. A truly dominating weekend.

Given all this is Ollie Bearman the real deal? I say based on this alone yes; but this upcoming F2 season will truly decide it for me. He’ll have arguably the best teammate in junior racing up until this point in Kimi Antonelli this year. Even though Antonelli is a young prodigy in his own right, he is still a rookie in F2. And if Bearman continues his streak of taking the next step in his second season, he should have no problem convincingly beating him. And I believe with his F1 experience, and that F1 cars better suit his driving style, he should excel in F1 in no time. I’m super excited to see what the future has to bring for him.