Oliver Bearman revealed that he was moved to tears while driving the Lotus 97T used by Ayrton Senna in 1985. For the Haas driver, driving the car of the Brazilian’s first victory in Formula 1, ‘was one of the best days of my life’.
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The experience took place at Silverstone and gained even greater significance due to the presence of Bearman’s father and girlfriend, as well as Senna’s original mechanic, and former F1 driver Karun Chandhok. The Briton highlighted that the combination of the car’s history and the people around him made the moment especially memorable.
“For me, driving Senna’s first car with his mechanic helping on the car, his engineer also being there with me at Silverstone, was a very emotional moment,” Bearman said on the F1 Beyond The Grid podcast. The driver also recalled that he never saw Senna race live, but grew up hearing that the Brazilian was considered one of the best and highlighted the impact of his death in 1994.
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Bearman already expected the experience to evoke strong emotions: “I knew I would get really emotional, because with these things sometimes I really can’t control my emotions. As soon as my manager told me what I would do, a month before, I knew it would be a really memorable day,” he said. After driving the Lotus, he summed up: “It was really one of the best days of my life, and those emotions hit me a lot afterwards,” he added.
The young driver was authorized to complete only three laps, aiming to preserve the engine, but decided to extend the experience. When he was supposed to follow the filming car back to the pits, Bearman went straight and completed another lap at a strong pace, which he called his ‘glory lap’: “I really enjoyed it. I remember entering the pits with the brakes releasing a bit of smoke because I was pushing hard on the last lap. It was super fun,” Bearman concluded.
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