Oliver Bearman has suffered a lacklustre Formula 2 campaign after a promising debut season in 2023 for PREMA.
The British driver is languishing in 15th place in the standings after an inconsistent second year with the Italian team. His only trip to the podium to date came as a Sprint Race victory in Austria.
Bearman also missed the FIA F2 round in Saudi Arabia after being called up by Ferrari to replace the injured Carlos Sainz in F1 midway through the weekend.
He had given PREMA pole position in Jeddah, as well, after topping the qualifying session by a mere 0.025 seconds to Invicta driver Kush Maini.
Yet Bearman will graduate to Formula 1 for the 2025 season with Haas and race alongside Frenchman Esteban Ocon for the American team.
Oliver Bearman admits his F2 season has been ‘difficult’
Bearman lost valuable points in the F2 title fight whilst battling to seventh place against the world’s greatest drivers during the F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, as Dennis Hauger and Enzo Fittipaldi took victory in the junior series.
While competing in Formula 2, Bearman has struggled at multiple rounds, including the season-opener in Bahrain after scoring no points.
His second point-less round of the year followed in Catalunya as PREMA continued to find trouble with the brand new Dallara-built car for this season.
Bearman has now admitted to the Formula 2 website that his year has been challenging. The 19-year-old has been marred in the midfield, struggling to fight for victories consistently.
He said: “It’s been a difficult season, the first season in my career where I’m not fighting for wins on a regular basis, which has been difficult.”
Oliver Bearman is ‘motivated’ to finish the F2 season strongly despite his future being confirmed
Bearman’s contract with Haas in Formula 1 was announced in July, just before the British Grand Prix, a relatively early announcement ahead of 2025.
The Ferrari junior has been driving in FP1 sessions on F1 race weekends with Haas and has two more outings lined up in Mexico and Abu Dhabi.
But the teenager’s focus remains on Formula 2, with four of the final rounds being at tracks Bearman has performed well at in the past.
In September, the British driver will return to Baku in Azerbaijan, a circuit where he took pole position and two wins in 2023 despite suffering from damaged steering in qualifying.
Yet the PREMA driver believes he still has work to do in his junior career after a successful partnership with the Italian team.
Bearman added: “I want to finish on a high, and I’m as motivated as ever to really go through this and finish on one. I feel like I owe it to the team to get that result. So, while I’m going into F1 in 2025, I need to finish this one [well].”