Another weekend possible for Bearman? “Carlos has the pain”

Oliver Bearman kicked off his Formula 1 career with a positive performance. The Briton earned his first points finishing seventh, and if Carlos Sainz will not feel better until the Australian Grand Prix, he would have the chance to compete again for Ferrari this season.

In the paddock, Frederic Vasseur explained how Carlos Sainz feels after his surgery. "This morning I visited him and he was completely okay. He was here today. He has the pain. He's struggling to to walk but it's a huge recovery. Now we have to be focused on Melbourne. He needs to have a good rest this week and we'll see."

This could mean Oliver Bearman could return to action in two weeks time at the Australian Grand Prix.

Vasseur proud of the young driver

Ferrari’s team principal was not short of praise for Bearman after the race. "It's a mega weekend for Olly. Called him at something like 2 pm on the Friday for FP3. It's not Barcelona. We are in Jeddah," Vasseur underlined the difficulty of the track where Bearman had to make his debut.

"At the end he managed it very well. If you have a look he was even able to push in the last lap to keep Lando, Lewis behind him. I was even surprised myself to ask him to push a little bit more from the pit wall and to be not too conservative because he was not doing mistake at this stage," the team principal added.

However, he also believes the best his team can do is to improve Bearman step-by-step on his way to earn a seat for full season in the top category. "He will have other opportunities during the season to do FP1, to test the car. We will do it properly. The main focus is on F2 this season. He has a huge challenge that I will keep in mind also that he was in pole position and I killed the weekend for him in F2."