Mark Webber questions Oliver Bearman deal with missing Haas team dynamic claimed

Although Haas have made great strides forward in Ayao Komatsu’s first year as team boss, Mark Webber has questioned whether the engineer is the right person to guide Oliver Bearman in his debut campaign.

Bottom of the log last season, Haas team owner Gene Haas sacked the team boss Guenther Steiner over the phone and installed former director of engineering Komatsu as the new team principal.

Mark Webber warns F1 is ‘not a finishing school’

Under his leadership, Haas have improved from 10th in the Constructors’ Championship having scored 12 points last season to seventh this year with 31 points on the board .

But while his first season as the boss has been encouraging, Webber questions if he’s the right leader for Haas’ all-new 2025 line-up.

The team is saying goodbye to Steiner’s two signings, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, with Esteban Ocon charged with leading the team while Bearman will contest his first full season in the sport.

The Briton has already lined up twice in Formula 1, filling in for Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia while the Ferrari driver was recovering from an appendectomy before taking Magnussen’s seat in Baku after the Dane was banned having hit the 12-point penalty mark on his super licence.

Bearman made history by becoming the first driver to score points for two different teams in his first two Grand Prix starts.

His performances show the Formula 2 driver has pace, but Webber fears Haas’ leadership could hamper him next season.

Oliver Bearman features on two F1 2024 head-to-head lists

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025 driver line-up: Who is already confirmed for the 2025 grid?

“Bearman, Haas? I don’t like that team for me,” the eight-time Grand Prix winner told the Formula For Success podcast.

“Like that’s in terms of an EJ, Andreas Stella, these people, even Christian [Horner] and Toto [Wolff], they’re racers. You need that.

“The leadership when you’re losing your virginity in F1 is a really important role, I think, who your management is at the team.

“So Bearman and Haas, I hope it… He looks seriously rapid. Did well in Saudi in the Ferrari and obviously [Kimi] Antonelli is in good shape with Toto there.

“But young, let’s see, not a finishing school. They take the oxygen mask off top of Everest, see how they go.”

But while Webber has his reservations, former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan is celebrating the fact that Formula 1, as things stand today, will have three rookies on the 2025 grid in Bearman, Antonelli and Jack Doohan.

“I’m one of those people who like to give young drivers a chance,” he said. “There was a bottleneck for a while, and now suddenly there’s a lot of things happening.

“Isn’t it fantastic? Instead of whinging about no entry, no possibility, my next little whinge will be, why are there not some new teams.”

Although this year’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix marked the first F1 campaign without a rookie on the grid, two have since debuted in Bearman and more recently Williams’ Franco Colapinto who was signed to replace Logan Sargeant.

Liam Lawson, although not a rookie having raced five times last season when he filled in for the injured Daniel Ricciardo, will also be back on the grid at the upcoming United States Grand Prix as he replaces Ricciardo for the final six races of the season in what’s being billed as audition for a 2025 VCARB, or Red Bull, race seat .

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