Ollie Bearman Survives a Near-Miss and Drives the Race of His Life to Fifth in China

Oliver Bearman’s Sunday in Shanghai nearly ended before the first lap was complete, and the fact that it ended with a fifth-place finish and a paddock full of people talking about him as a future champion is one of the weekend’s more remarkable stories.



The near-miss arrived at high speed approaching Turn 13 on lap one, when Hadjar’s Red Bull snapped without warning in the middle of a battle between the two young drivers for sixth position.



“It was very instantaneous, the way the car snapped out of me,” Hadjar said afterward, describing a moment that gave him no time to react before the car was already sideways and sliding toward the barrier.



Bearman, closing at full speed from directly behind, was forced hard into the run-off area to avoid what would have been a devastating impact at one of the circuit’s fastest points.



“I was so lucky, to be honest, to avoid that — I mean, I’m lucky to be standing here,” Bearman said in the paddock after the race.



“Honestly, that would have been a monster shunt.”



Having been dropped to 12th by the chaos of the opening lap, Bearman then produced a drive of sustained and controlled aggression that put him back inside the top five by the chequered flag.



He passed Gasly, Hulkenberg, Lindblad, Ocon and Colapinto across 57 laps, describing it afterward as feeling like “40 qualifying laps,” a phrase that captured the relentless intensity of having to find and execute five separate overtaking moves against drivers who were not giving anything away cheaply.



The 20-year-old Englishman has now scored points in three of his last four Grand Prix starts, and his trajectory through the field on Sunday prompted genuine conversation in the paddock about whether Haas have something genuinely special on their hands.



His result puts him fifth in the drivers’ championship after two rounds, sitting behind only the two Mercedes and two Ferrari drivers — an extraordinary position for a team that was fighting for scraps at the back of the field just two seasons ago.



Haas are now fourth in the constructors’ standings, one point behind McLaren who failed to start, a statistic that tells its own story about the unpredictability of this new regulatory era.



Bearman himself remained measured in the face of the attention, focusing on the process rather than the position and noting that the new 2026 cars reward drivers who can manage energy and tyre temperature simultaneously — a skill set he appears to have absorbed quickly.
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