The bear among the stars
Beneath the figure of the bear, a reference even to his name, is Oliver Bearman, also known as 'Ollie'. The type of boy who talks little and sticks to the facts, but knows how to seize challenges and opportunities at the right time.
© Scuderia Ferrari
Ollie got up on the morning of the 8th of March knowing that he had done what he had to do the day before. With his team, Prema Racing, he had qualified first, on pole position, for the Formula 2 race that awaited him that same day, but this cruel sport, undermined by politics and noise, silenced Max Verstappen's dominance for a moment to make way for the name of an 18-year-old boy. It left the opportunity for him, Ollie Bearman.
And so, in an instant, with a phone call, Ollie's weekend took an unexpected turn. Waiting for him was an SF-24, that of Carlos Sainz, who had been absent due to appendicitis, which did not prevent him from returning to the paddock the day after his operation, a gesture that could already be a sign for Ollie of the league in which he was now also playing. The league of the lions, of the big boys.
Driving number 38, last worn by Lorenzo Bandini in Monaco in 1962, the young driver had just 60 minutes, that of FP3, to make his own a single-seater that he had never driven before. But in Oliver's eyes there was a mixture of serenity and determination, the eagerness of someone who wants to prove that this seat should not just be on loan, but permanent.
0.036 milliseconds. That's the time that separated Ollie from Q3, which was closed by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. To us it seemed like a flash, but to Ollie it seemed like an eternity, so much so that he surprised the media with his disappointment. He wanted more, he knew he could give more.
On a Saturday with a Sunday flavour, Ollie's real journey began from grid spot number 11. The bear against the lions, the ones he had always admired and now had to defeat. Giving him strength was another great, absent but always present, his idol, Sebastian Vettel, with a message that surely gave him the impetus to jump on the track and give his best. The caution of driving at 300 km/h, surrounded by people who, unlike you, do this almost every weekend, was palpable at the start, but lap after lap Ollie felt less like a bear and more like a lion. The experience of Hulkenberg, the pressure of Lando Norris or the physical fatigue and the pressure of the G-forces on his neck were not enough to prevent him from finishing 7th after a race that was always on the up.
A position that tasted like victory for a weekend, maybe not for Ollie but for the sport, so that a champion like Lewis Hamilton was waiting outside the car to show him just how good he was. But it wasn't just Lewis, the whole grid was happy for Ollie, we all were from home. Because F1's victory in Jeddah was about giving a boy the opportunity to shine on and off the track, to tell us that there's a bright future out there.
The person who understood this best throughout the weekend was Ollie's father, David, who felt all the emotions and tried unsuccessfully to hide them from us. The embrace between the two ends a perfect weekend, with all its imperfections, and begins a wait that will allow us to understand if, in the future, we will see Ollie playing in the big league again. Even if by now it should no longer be called that, because Ollie Bearman, without letting go of being a bear, has already shown with all his qualities that he can become a lion.
