Bearman to replace banned Magnussen

Ollie Bearman will be standing in for Kevin Magnussen at Haas for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix following the Dane’s race ban for reaching the maximum 12 penalty points on his super licence.

Magnussen was handed a 10-second penalty and two penalty points when the stewards deemed he was “wholly to blame” for banging wheels with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly when trying a pass at the Italian Grand Prix.

With Bearman set to race full-time for Haas in 2025 alongside Esteban Ocon, the team decided to promote Bearman – who is dovetailing his role as reserve for both Haas and Ferrari aswell as his campaign in F2 this year – for the race in Baku.

It made the most sense for Haas to give Bearman the weekend in the Haas so he can familiarise himself with the team for a full weekend before he makes his debut.

It means Bearman who won his second F2 race of the season in Monza will be missing the F2 Sprint and Feature races in Baku.

The young Brit has been building up his F1 preparations with runs in FP1 for Haas this year, the fourth of six taking place in Hungary just before the summer break.

Magnussen can return back to his Haas for the following race in Singapore, as his Super Licence will be wiped clean of points.

It’s definitely more of a challenge stepping in to race as a reserve driver, with limited prep-time and so on, but I’m in the fortunate position of having done it earlier in the year with Scuderia Ferrari, so I can at least call on that experience. I’ve also had four FP1 sessions with MoneyGram Haas F1 Team in the VF-24 already this season, so undoubtedly that will also prove to be valuable in tackling the full race weekend in Baku. The team is in good form at the moment and I’ll do my best to be prepared with the time we have available. The aim is to get out there and have a solid weekend in Azerbaijan.
Bearman on his reserve duties.

I’m excited that Ollie will be driving the VF-24 alongside Nico in Baku. He’s already shown great promise in his FP1 outings and post-season test, and he performed very well when he drove for Scuderia Ferrari in Saudi Arabia, picking up points in the process. This is another excellent opportunity for both Ollie and the team to work together, this time throughout an entire race weekend, and he couldn’t ask for better teammate than Nico to provide him with a reference.
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal.