When scrawny kids can score points first time out...

[PlatinumZealot]

This weekend a scrawny 18 year old with only 28 teeth in his mouth hopped into a 1,000hp car in one of the most demanding tracks on the calendar no less, and was able drive right on pace with the top drivers for 50 laps without sending it into the barriers or blacking out. How disappointing.

This is what it is now people. Should it be like this? Are you OK with this? And what is happening exactly?

1) Formula 1 cars are no longer the beasts that they once were. They have become relatively easy to drive. A few practice sessions is enough to learn the limits and be right on pace for 300km.

2) The level of preparation of young drivers is down to a science in recent times and can be easily replicated across the board. Ollie Bearman is not much of a bear, he looks like an egret actually, but his neck is the size of his waist. No need for much upper strength here. Just make sure your head stays attached at 5Gs...

3) Motorsport was never that physical of a "sport" to begin with! It doesn't even take much mastery. After 3 years you're basically at your peak in F1

4) Don't overthink this! Even in other sports like football, scrawny kids can jump right it and play with the best. The average Formula 1 driver now starts out way younger than in the past. It's not unique to F1, so get over your rose-tinted sentiments.

[TeamKoolGreen]

How was this different to wee Hamilton in 2007?

[JordanMugen]

While some think Bearman had unfair advantages in karting (like others too), Bearman has been karting since he was a child. Karting is very physical. Why wouldn't Bearman be well prepared?

Seasoned drivers like Stroll are still able to put the car in the wall, Formula 1 is still hard.

Making the cars slower with less downforce and no power steering -- what would that achieve? Bearman has already been driving such a car in Formula 2!

Bearman lost his neck but otherwise the car is not that different, it just has higher cornering G than Formula 2 or Indycar on road courses by quite some margin. We have seen time and time again that these F1 cars are very snappy and are not "easy" to recover at all.

Don't forget others like Raikkonen and Button went straight from Formula Renault and Formula Ford to Formula One when the cars were lighter and had V10s and did fine -- although F1 did have driver aids like traction control back then.

Meanwhile experienced 27-year-old veterans like Nyck de Vries did poorly and crashed a lot. Mick Schumacher was also Formula 2 champion and crashed a lot, as if to suggest Formula 1 is relatively difficult.

Besides, others say the cars are cumbersome and don't have the supple gliding ride and low speed rotation of the 2021 cars. Well which is it, are the 2022 cars more difficult to drive or less? Folks can't have it both ways!

[TeamKoolGreen]

While some think Bearman had unfair advantages in karting (like others too), Bearman has been karting since he was a child. Karting is very physical. Why wouldn't Bearman be well prepared?

Seasoned drivers like Stroll are still able to put the car in the wall, Formula 1 is still hard.

Making the cars slower with less downforce and no power steering -- what would that achieve? Bearman has already been driving such a car in Formula 2!

Bearman lost his neck but otherwise the car is not that different, it has higher cornering G than Formula 2 or Indycar on road courses by quite some margin.

What were these advantages in karting ? I've heard it mentioned a few times but never explained

[JordanMugen]

What were these advantages in karting ? I've heard it mentioned a few times but never explained

I dunno, drivers with more money can prepare better engines and stuff I guess. The more professional karting leagues are not spec series. There are more amateur leagues (for older drivers, mostly) who do use sealed spec Briggs & Stratton engines.

Even in spec series, there is always the power (literally) or buying ten of them and finding the one that is that little bit better than the others!

[TFSA]

This is a talent thing. The kid is obviously talented. This has nothing to do with F1 cars being easy to drive. They are not, and anyone who believes so are fooling themselves.

Kids are capable of amazing things when there's enough talent and preparation.

Also it's important not to overestimate what he did. I know a lot of the F1 news sites have given him extremely high ratings, but fact is that he finished P7 in the 2nd fastest car on the field, which is hardly much better than what Nyck DE Vries did at Monza in 22 in a slower car, and we know how that ended the season after.

Bearman had had basically one job this weekend: Don't put put the car in the wall. In that respect, he did a better job than Stroll and Zhou (and Danny Ric if you count his spin). But that's not a miracle.

[Mandrake]

The Ferrari is a great car to jump in and impress. 2nd fastest car with a gap and seemingly not a twitchy car to drive.

He did not have to overdrive the car to deliver the result, unlike Schumacher had to do in the Haas for example. You can also not compare this with others drivers fighting for their cockpits. As TFSA put it, he had one job - to finish. And he did very well at that!

What do you reckon would LeClerc have said how much % of limit would he needed to go to finish where Bearman ended up? 80%?

[izzy]

Lol well he was quite slow really . About 0.5 or something behind the other car. He was consistent and had the second best car, and was mega for his age and experience.

[SiLo]

It's like people think just because they are 18, the haven't driven a racing car before. He's probably got 14 years of racing experience already.

[DChemTech]

And 18 /19 year olds sometimes do brilliant physics, are frequently sent to war, are top-of-the bill ice skaters or soccer players, and so on.
So what's the point of this? You seen to answer it already in your 4th point: there is no problem, this is how the world works. Could have done that without calling him scrawny and whatnot though.

[bluechris]

For me its not so easy to jump in a car like he did. Yes he was on pole in F2 in the same track so he has a good knowledge of the track at least but there ends the similarities with F1.
An F1 car has double or more G in cornering/bracking/accelerating. The new Undergound Effect cars are more twitchy and more dangerous for a snap or anything. Even though he has free practises with Haas, i admire that his head was on earth and didn't put a foot wrong for 50 laps in a track with barriers all over around.
Also the electronics? count that also, its not easy job to set everything and F1 is a monster in settings in comparison to F2....

Bottom line, this is not an easy job, the kid was so thin even if he has a good neck, he melted in the car and yet he didnt do any mistake.

Overall a very good performance and i am very impressed by him... but i dont agree that anyone can jump in a car and go fast without mistakes, you need to have something special to achieve that even though with power steering, auto gearing etc is making the drivers life much easier than the old days so yeah.. this makes it easier for young guns to try.

[everythingisawesome]

A way to think of this is that fundamentally, 'humans' are different nowadays.
Bearman is an example of what a young person/technology is capable of in this era.
'Back in the day' simulators/data and generally what we could access and experience was limited.

Let's not forget, he was slow in comparison to his teammate, but very talented and mature with the way he dealt with scenarios.
In general, impressive.

[JPower]

There's a reason why his fellow competitors were giving him high praise. Just jumping into an F1 car and being on pace isn't easy.

EDIT: Let's not forget, Bearman has plenty of time in Ferrari's sim and I'm pretty sure he drove the F1-75 in a test earlier this year.

[Hoffman900]

Between starting karts early, being a full time racer since he was a kid, simulation, coaching, etc, 18yo’s today are more practiced and experienced than any other generation before.

There was a time when a F1 / Grand Prix driver probably never stepped foot into a race car until 18 because there was none of this. In terms of racing, not Grand Prix racing, a 18yo today has more race experience than a Senna or Prost did in their entire career - from feeder series on up.

As for F1 today, they’re also mostly coached in the race from pit wall.

As for 18, wars are fought by 18 year olds. They can do plenty of things with the right training.

[TeamKoolGreen]

What were these advantages in karting ? I've heard it mentioned a few times but never explained

I dunno, drivers with more money can prepare better engines and stuff I guess. The more professional karting leagues are not spec series. There are more amateur leagues (for older drivers, mostly) who do use sealed spec Briggs & Stratton engines.

Even in spec series, there is always the power (literally) or buying ten of them and finding the one that is that little bit better than the others!

I read somewhere that his dad bought a whole kart engine manufacture to select the best for the kid