Oliver Bearman makes Kimi Antonelli feelings clear after year as F2 team-mates
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Oliver Bearman has backed his "dear friend" Kimi Antonelli to shine for Mercedes in Lewis Hamilton's stead. Both teenagers will feature on the 2025 Formula 1 grid. Brit Bearman's impressive cameo for Ferrari in March landed him a seat with customer team Haas while Antonelli is the heir to Hamilton's Silver Arrows throne.
The pressure will be on the latter in particular to perform given the level of hype surrounding the young Italian. But even though they will be rivals in the future, Bearman hopes to see his Formula 2 team-mate grab the opportunity with both hands. “Kimi is a very fast driver, that's for sure," the Brit told AutoRacer. He's also a good guy, I consider him a dear friend and I'm happy that we'll be together in F1.".
Though he will race for Haas, Bearman remains a member of the Ferrari academy and will be reserve driver to Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. The Scuderia hope he can one day take over from Hamilton, who will be 40 by the time he first races in red and who is in the twilight of his glittering F1 career.
And that is a long-term ambition that Bearman already has one eye on achieving. He added: "Growing up and racing for Ferrari has been the greatest pride of my career. I hope to wear the red again very soon.". In contrast, Antonelli doesn't need to work his way up from one of the smaller outfits on the grid into a competitive race seat. The 18-year-old has been shown immense trust by Toto Wolff through the decision to place him straight into Hamilton's vacant Mercedes seat, rather than blooding him in F1 with a customer team.
