Komatsu ‘roots’ for Bearman in Ferrari: “It would be a reward for our work”

Convincing debuts Selected by the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2022, for two years Oliver Bearman was the bet of the Maranello youth team, as demonstrated by his sudden and impressive debut with the Ferrari at the 2024 Saudi Arabian GP: urgently called to replace the unavailable Carlos Sainz, the young Briton (at the time in F2) immediately obtained a placing in the points in Jeddah with 7th place, and then replicated in the top-10 in Baku, this time with Haas. From the following year to today, Bearman has always been part of the US team as an official driver, but on several occasions there have been rumors about his possible promotion to Ferrari. Reason for satisfaction A hypothesis that does not even exclude the Haas Team Principal, Ayao Komatsu, who does not fear Bearman’s departure, on the contrary. Interviewed by the official F1 podcast, Beyond the Grid, the Japanese manager believes that this transfer should be a source of pride for the work done by the team in managing its young driver: “He has enormous potential – he commented – there is no point in worrying about his possible departure. I firmly believe that we should focus on what we can control. Ferrari has been investing in him for years. We have already signed him last year and this year, and if we have done a good job with Ollie Bearman and he performs so well that Ferrari wants it, then we should be satisfied that we have done our job well. We must concentrate on ours.” Negotiations underway between Haas and Ferrari which are not secret at all, even if Haas, as reiterated by Komatsu, prefers to focus on the current season, which started positively both for the team and for Bearman himself (except for the bad accident in Japan), even 5th in China: “It’s just a conversation between us and Ferrari – he added – we are all focused on getting the best performance from the car and from Ollie. This could mean losing him next year. Obviously, we hope not, but ultimately we have no control over the situation.”