Bearman to drive for Haas in Baku in place of banned Magnussen

Oliver Bearman will be participating in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix to replace Kevin Magnussen following one race ban for reaching the maximum 12 penalty points on his Super License.

Magnussen was handed 10-second time penalty and two penalty points following an incident involving Pierre Gasly during the Italian Grand Prix, that the stewards deemed the Dane “wholly to blame” for when trying to pass at Turn 4, resulting in a bang of the wheels.

The young Briton is set for a full time race seat with Haas in the 2025 season, pairing Esteban Ocon. This will be Bearman’s second race in F1 following his impressive performance in Jeddah, replacing Carlos Sainz, who was ruled out after falling ill. The 19-year old scoring points with a seventh place finish in the Ferrari.

Bearman being Magnussen’s replacement for this weekend was rather simple, it made sense for him to familiarise himself with his future seat, and experience it for a whole weekend before he makes his debut in the season opener in Australia next year.

This change of events means Bearman, who won his second race of the F2 season in Monza, will miss out on the upcoming round of Formula 2 next weekend.

Magnussen will return to Haas for the following race in Singapore, and his Super License will be wiped clean of penalty points for what will most likely be his last seven Grand Prix in F1.

“It’s definitely more challenging 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,” said Bearman.

“I’ve also had four FP1 sessions with MoneyGram Haas F1 Team in the VF-24 already this season, so undoubtedly that would 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.”

The Team Principle Ayao Komatsu also spoke on the subject. “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 a better teammate than Nico to provide him with a reference.”