Stand-out rookie performances from Oliver Bearman and Franco Colapinto show the strength of Formula 1 academy programmes, according to Formula 2 and Formula 3 CEO Bruno Michel.
For the first time in series history, F1 welcomed the same 20 drivers onto the 2024 grid that saw out the previous campaign. Lewis Hamilton’s signing with Ferrari for 2025 has blown that wide open and the driver market has been in flux ever since.
With the grid remaining stagnant before that blockbuster move, leaving the likes of Liam Lawson on the sidelines in spite of his capable 2023 cameo, detractors argued that F1 wasn’t doing enough to bring fresh blood into the sport. Now that has all changed.
Bearman’s starring performance at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in place of Carlos Sainz at Ferrari paved the way for his Haas signing for 2025. Colapinto has mesmerised those at Williams after his mid-season replacement of Logan Sargeant, Andrea Kimi Antonelli is taking the world by storm and Lawson has got his second chance at Faenza for the rest of 2024.
READ MORE: Liam Lawson’s RB F1 promotion tipped to be Red Bull audition
Fresh blood will join the 2025 F1 grid
Antonelli is already confirmed to be joining Bearman on next year’s F1 grid, and the Italian teenager will go straight into a top team at Mercedes. The PREMA F2 team-mates will be joined by fellow rookie Jack Doohan, who will be partnering Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. All signs point towards Lawson’s six-round trial at RB as an audition for a 2025 contract at either Red Bull-owned team. Moreover, Colapinto’s impressive debut at Williams is sparking talks of a two-year loan to Sauber/Audi.
All of these drivers, although young, have shown they are adept at an F1 level, quick on the track, and well-rounded off of it. But why is that?
It is all down to the common denominator that connects the young stars – they are all members of an F1 team academy programme.
Bearman is a part of the Ferrari Driver Academy, Antonelli has been a part of the Mercedes family since he was 12 years old, Lawson is a Red Bull Junior and Doohan is the first Alpine Academy Driver to graduate to F1 with the Anglo-French team (with Oscar Piastri and Zhou Guanyu before him graduating with rival outfits).
Colapinto meanwhile, progressed to F1 after just half a season in F2, having signed with the Williams Academy ahead of his 2023 F3 campaign.
F1 teams select academy drivers at a young age and help guide them through the single-seater pyramid. Not only that, but they get privileged access to how an F1 team operates, through physical and mental preparation, simulator training, media tutoring and driver briefings. F1 academy prospects are a relatively modern phenomenon.
READ MORE: Williams in discussions with Sauber/Audi over Franco Colapinto F1 loan deal
How F1 academies helped prepare Oliver Bearman, Franco Colapinto and company
Motorsport Week spoke to F2 and F3 CEO Michel in a select media session and asked why he felt the academy drivers progressing to F1 were doing so with such grace.
“[Academies] became completely fundamental in the pyramid,” Michel said. “In, F2 half of the grid is coming from F1 teams’ academies. In Formula 3, I think we had one-third of the grid that was coming from F1 teams’ academies. Of course, it’s important. Number one, because the academies are giving the drivers financial support to try to complete their season. But also next to that, the academies are preparing the drivers in the environment of an F1 team. To learn and to be ready when they get to Formula 1.
“Doohan is going to be racing for Alpine next year. Doohan has been working all season this year with Alpine. In the simulators during the race weekends. He’s at the back of the garage to absorb everything during every race. That’s also a very, very important preparation. That is outside the driving skill itself.
“When you enter into a Formula 1 garage, you have 60 people and each of them has a very specific role. You need to understand how it’s working. Life is much more complicated in F1 than it is in F2 where you have only 12 people and in F3 where you have only 10 people. So that’s also the kind of thing that they have to learn and manage the pressure and work with the people.”
That’s why in Michel’s eyes, drivers who are part of academies have an advantage…
“Probably not in the driving skill,” Michel said. “But in the management of the environment skill, an advantage, yes.”
READ MORE: Oliver Bearman details Lewis Hamilton F1 Baku battle
Oliver Bearman and Franco Colapinto starred in Baku
The results speak for themselves and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a prime example. Bearman, standing in for Kevin Magnussen at Haas, earned a top-10 result, and Colapinto scored his maiden points in just his second Grand Prix.
In F2 at Baku, Alpine Academy driver Gabriele Mini stepped up from F3 to take Bearman’s seat for the weekend at Prema and Williams Academy driver Luke Browning also made his F2 debut. Mini scored a podium in the Sprint and Browning scored four points across the two races courtesy of seventh in the Feature. That shows that F1 academies, combined with the single-seater pyramid are having the desired effect on preparing the next generation of Grand Prix drivers.
Bruno Michel: ‘the single-seater pyramid is working’
“At the end of the day, why is the pyramid there? It’s to prepare drivers for Formula 1,” explained Michel. “We want to make sure that when they are coming into Formula 1, they are ready. In Baku, two F2 drivers jumped into F1 and were immediately on the spot and scoring points.
“It means that the pyramid is working, and that’s really what is important.
“We are trying to make sure that the evolution of the F3 car and the F2 cars towards F1 are the correct one, and that the drivers are getting the right experience, but it’s not only the car. It’s also the fact that they’re racing alongside F1 on the race weekend. It’s also about the format of the weekend.
“There are a lot of things that we do that prepare the drivers for F1 at the end of the day. It’s all the systems that the car has, because the drivers have to start to work with the DRS, with all the environments that the FIA is creating with the race control, the marshalling system. There are all these things that the drivers need to be prepared for that are going to, when they arrive in the F1 garage one day, if they do, they are not going to be totally lost.”
For the drivers arriving in F1 right now, from Colapinto to Bearman, Lawson to Antonelli – not a single one of them looks lost and the sport is all the better for it as fresh blood comes through.
