Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has advised Oliver Bearman to not succumb to mounting pressure from inevitable errors in his rookie season in Formula 1 with Haas in 2025.
Haas announced earlier this month that Bearman will graduate from his present reserve driver role to replace the Sauber-bound Nico Hulkenberg in the team’s line-up.
Bearman has conducted several outings with Haas since last season and he has signed a multi-term deal to be with the side through F1’s regulation overhaul in 2026.
The Briton has one F1 race appearance to his name, having partnered Leclerc to replace the unwell Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia as he raced to an impressive seventh.
Leclerc, who entered F1 via Ferrari’s support at Sauber in 2018, has encouraged Bearman to make the mistakes in his debut campaign which will aid his development.
“I think he’s such an incredibly talented driver,” Leclerc said at Silverstone when asked about Bearman’s promotion.
“I think what you need in your first year is always very specific to each driver, because it also depends on how much preparation you’ve had before getting there.
“I think Ollie’s very well prepared and he has shown that in Jeddah when he jumped in the car and was straightaway very, very strong.
“One typical [piece of] advice that I will give him is to not put himself under too much pressure. He’s still very, very young and the speed, he has it. He has showed it several times.
“He’s not having an easy season as the team is struggling a little bit in Formula 2 – quite a lot, actually. But he’s incredibly fast and I have no doubt that he will be super-fast in Formula 1.
“He just needs to take his time, make the mistakes that he needs to in order to learn and to become a better driver and not put yourself under too much pressure,
because that’s where sometimes you can perform a little bit less [than] your optimum potential.”
Haas boss Ayao Komatsu has contended that mishaps will have to be assessed on an individual basis, but he is confident Bearman’s slip-ups will be forgivable ones.
“You have to look at the individual mistakes as it were, you cannot just call mistakes as one word, every situation is different, you have to judge it in a context,” he said.
“It might be the right mistake to make, it might be a wrong mistake to make, it really depends on the context, where you are in the championship, where you are on the grid, what phase of the race it is, is this the race to take the risk, is this the event to be conservative, so it really depends on the context.
“He understands the bigger picture very well, he understands the context very well, so my expectation is if he was going to make a mistake, he would make a mistake in the right way, if you like, that’s not something to be shouted at, if you like.”
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