I mean I’m just not quite sure I buy the Bearman hype at all. All we effectively saw was a lad keep it out of the walls. He would be 9th had McLaren and Merc not left Norris and Hamilton on the long strategy. Bearing in mind the Aston is a dog on high fuel, the Merc is a bouncing dog on any fuel, and McLaren have no straight line speed to defend or overtake, I’m not quite sure it’s the lauded performance the freshman hype gets. You usually know when you’ve seen a special talent, I’m not sure that was it yesterday. Ferrari are a good chunk ahead of Merc, McL and Aston, and on raw pace this kid was behind all of them (bar Stroll- what a surprise). I know this sounds like a very grumpy post, it’s not meant to be- it’s just trying to balance the narrative. Those close to F2 and junior formulas are seemingly aware of other talents being well better than this lad. Time will tell of course- F2 might actually be the thing to watch this year if the opening two F1 races are anything to go by!
I agree, it's much easier to look good in the second best car on the grid, but the reality is he got beaten by 3 slower cars. A bit like when McLaren hyped Magnusson for his debut 2nd, his sole podium in F1.
He is struggling in racing. He has a turn of speed but has got lost in the pack. Lando and now Tsunoda. Piastri has shown there was little wrong with the car at Mclaren. To stay he needs to take command of that team by regularly beating his team mate.
To be clear, I’m not trying to suggest that Bearman is the second coming of Senna or similar, nor that he’s the necessarily the most deserving of promotion to F1. Equally if you reduce his race to, “all we effectively saw was him do was keep it out of the walls”, then that’s a pretty apt summary of Verstappen’s race too, and he’s not too bad an F1 driver. In context, he was around 0.3s off Leclerc, having barely practiced, in a car he hasn’t driven and with less than a pre-season test of running, all accumulated in a Haas, which is likely a very different beast. He was clean in T1, battled in the mid grid to make up a few positions and brought it home without any real mistakes. It wasn’t some superstar performance, but it was solid and he didn’t look out of place at any point. People moan about F1 being boring. All I’m saying is that it would add to the show to be watching to see if some of these drivers develop into anything, rather than for example, Bottas trundling round “keeping it out of the walls, but with experience”, what’s he ever going to show now that is going to surprise or excite anyone on a regular basis? Someone like Alonso is still bringing a huge level of performance, we don’t need shot of him, but there’s 3-5 on the grid who’ve had their time and losing a few each year to make way for some exciting and capable rookies would add add something to the sport.
+'m mo The Ferrari team would have given him a brief along the lines of "no heroics, enjoy the experience, keep out of trouble, one or more points would be amazing but not essential." He listened and did what he was told. I would describe it as an intelligent drive. Talk of there being better F2 drivers, maybe but not the point. They were not given a chance, maybe for a reason. Instinct perhaps yes, intelligence perhaps less of.
Pretty sure his brief was to bring it home with no major components destroyed, and given that he was thrown in with little practice time, he faired pretty well. It wasn't a Schumacher like debut(though his first start was a disaster) but he still did well
I thpught the young lad was nicely agressive early on and brought his car forward until the safety car ruined the race. his drive was good enough on a long stint to beat out the stupid non stopping mclaren and merc. to come in on 24 hour notice and get the car into a competitive 11th is OK. the gird is competitive so its not like it was a poor quali. he then progressed an f1 car on debit forward on a dangerous track and dis quite well. 18 year old stuck in an f1 car at 24 hours notice? come on folks.
You really should watch F2 - it's far, far better than F1 at the moment. To give it some context, three cars crossed the line in the race yesterday covered by 0.12 seconds. The field is a pretty talented one this year too - Bearman is up towards the top of that talent, but as I said on here previously, he's not a "special special" one. Just a good/v good driver. Coulthard more than Hakkinen.
I mean, Schumacher is an absolute legend of the sport, outside of his kamikaze stuff and he changed what drivers need to be absolute top performers. It was clear as soon as he turned up that he was going to be special. I'm not disrespecting him.
those cars back thenncoyld get ine start out of a clutch. a false start was red lining the thing and it was actually quite common to have no clutch left after couple starts. it's in no elwat equivalent anyway. our modern day young man was handed a car capable of 2nd on the grid but massively complex and got to 11th and a hairs breath of top 10 and improvement. Schumacher was handed a back marker with a cosworth engine and stuck it 7th which was what got the attention. it's more the equivalent of getting in a Minardi and putting it 7th. or an alpine lol.
Schumacher over peformed in it, but that Jordan was a pretty good car, far better than a Minardi. It finished 5th in WCC that season with De Crasheris & Gachot driving. His 7th place was only 4 higher than De Crasheris. To be impressive in the Minardi you had to out qualify any other team, Alonso impressed by doing that numerous times.
Well it was better than a terrible minardi yes but it was still a very under powered car. and yes a couple of wdc drove Minard and out qualified other teams as rookies
yeah, but it had the best aero iirc, everyone copied it. such a pretty car. Edit: But yeah, Bearman had a good weekend, but nowhere near as impressive as is being made out.
