The Fast and the Curious Feb 11, 2026

Bearman in Bahrain! | Ollie talks Taylor's new album, F1 liveries and hopes for 2026

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21:11

Concept

Formula One

Formula One is a top-level racing series where specially designed cars compete in races called Grands Prix. It's known for its speed and advanced technology.

Term

Shakedown Week

Shakedown Week is when new racing cars are tested to make sure everything works well before the racing season starts. It's important to catch any problems early.

Car

Porsche Cayman

The Porsche Cayman GT4 is a sporty car made by Porsche. It's built for performance and is popular among car lovers who enjoy driving fast on tracks.

Part

suspension

The suspension is the part of a car that helps it ride smoothly over bumps and turns. It connects the car to its wheels and keeps everything stable.

Part

performance brakes

Performance brakes are special brakes that help cars stop faster and handle better, especially when driving quickly or on a racetrack.

Concept

daily driver

A daily driver is a car that you use every day to go to work or run errands. It's usually practical and easy to drive.

Concept

restomod

Restomod is a term used for cars that have been both restored and upgraded. It means taking an old car and fixing it up while also adding new parts to make it better to drive.

Term

livery

A livery is the paint job and design on a race car. It usually includes colors and logos that represent the team and its sponsors.

Brand

Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo is a car brand from Italy that makes stylish and sporty cars. They are known for their involvement in racing and have a long history in motorsport.

Term

downforce

Downforce is what keeps a car pressed down on the road, helping it grip better, especially when going fast or turning. More downforce means better handling.

Term

tyres

Tyres are the round rubber parts that touch the road. They help the car grip the surface and can change how the car drives depending on their type and size.

Concept

Formula 1

Formula 1 is a top-level car racing series where teams compete in fast cars on different tracks. It's known for its exciting races and cutting-edge technology.

Term

high level

'High level' means that the cars and teams are performing really well, often better than in the past, making the races more exciting.

Term

lighter car

A lighter car means it weighs less, which helps it go faster and handle better on the track. Teams often try to make their cars as light as possible.

Brand

Ferrari

Ferrari is a famous car company from Italy that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. They are also well-known for their success in car racing.

Company

Haas

Haas is a racing team in Formula 1, which is a type of car racing. They work with Ferrari to use their engines in their cars.

Concept

pre-season testing

Pre-season testing is when Formula 1 teams practice with their cars before the racing season starts. It's a chance for them to make sure everything is working well.

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Often we're joined on this podcast by Greg James.

He offers his unique insights into the world of Formula One,

and we'll be doing so throughout this season.

But I'm currently talking to you at quarter to eight in the morning.

Now, for those that don't know, he presents a major UK breakfast show,

so that rules him out.

Betty Glover is on the ground in Bahrain working.

I'm sure we'll talk about that in due course.

So, hello.

My name is Christian Hugill.

Look after me because I'm flying solo.

Well, not quite flying solo.

We thought we'd take this opportunity to speak to a Formula One driver

because Shakedown Week has happened.

The new 2026 cars have gone out onto the track for the first time.

Now, it is pre-season testing.

Two tests in Bahrain.

We will debrief them at the end in some sort of season preview.

Stay tuned to this feed for that.

But right now, it's a brilliant opportunity to speak to a driver, as I say.

And this driver had a brilliant rookie season.

He's being taught about as a future Ferrari driver.

We spoke to him on this podcast.

I'm delighted to say quite a few times in his rookie year about all sorts of things.

There was Taylor Swift Chat.

There was a lot of that.

There was talk about his criminality when he was a baby driver alongside Kimmy Antonelli.

And therefore, we had him arrested on the main stage at Silverstone.

It was quite an eventful year.

So we're very excited to see what 2026 brings in the world of Ollie Bearman.

Not just on track, of course, but probably more excitingly on the world of the Fast and the Curious.

So let's bring him in.

This is Ollie Bearman on the Fast and the Curious.

Ollie Bearman, welcome back to the Fast and the Curious.

How are you?

How's Bahrain?

Hello.

Happy to be back.

Bahrain is nice and warm.

A bit warmer than home, so that's good.

And yeah, happy to be here.

Nice winter, get up too much?

Yeah, it was a nice winter.

Spent a bit of time in the sun, caught a bit of a time, but then lost it straight away.

And then I went to ski a little bit, which was good fun.

And then I pretty much, I think, week two of January, we're back to work.

It was a short one.

It is a short winter.

We've made a point of asking every driver we've spoken to so far this in terms of what's the most fun non-driving,

non-F1 thing you did over winter.

Skiing sounds like it's up there.

Anything else cool and fun?

I guess it's quite boring, but cycling.

Cycling's not boring.

Nice to feel a bit of speed again, you know?

Yeah, now I see this a lot on your Insta.

Well, I often see you cycling the track of a race weekend.

Is cycling something you particularly into?

Yeah, I enjoy it.

It's good training, obviously, for racing.

And I can't run for two hours.

I think I would be in a wheelchair the next day.

So, you know, it's the best way I can train as close to being in the car as possible.

And, you know, it's a bit more speed than running as well.

I try to go as often as possible, but also on Thursdays, I often get an hour in the evening,

and I try and do a few laps, for sure.

We always say, when we ask this question, don't say driving.

And you didn't, to be fair, but you're still like, I'm looking for speed.

It's all you drivers do.

Exactly.

It's the constant search for speed.

Anything to get some speed, legally, is good.

Of course, legally, we should say.

I don't think we've spoken to you.

I've just mentioned in our intro that we spoke to you about Taylor Swift last year.

People love that.

Now, people will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we've had you on since the new album dropped.

Did you enjoy it?

Do you have a favourite song?

Have you had much time to consume it?

It's all right.

I feel like it's being a bit overplayed, you know?

So I hear it on the radio all the time, which turns it into a bad song, you know?

I really like some of the songs, but they're literally on every five minutes.

So, you know, it's in that phase where I'm kind of hating them at the moment, unfortunately.

That's a shame.

No, you're right.

I do like Fate of Ophelia, though, although it has been played to death.

Yeah, exactly.

And the other one, Opalite.

Yeah.

It's a nice song, but it's, I mean, I've heard it a thousand times, too many.

I need to have a word with Greg James about that.

He's the voice of UK Radio.

Yeah, get him to turn it off.

Just give it a little break, you know?

Yeah.

It's very reasonable.

Ollie, I hope you don't mind me sharing this on the podcast.

You may not even remember this, but we bumped into each other on the plane on the way back

from Vegas, and I learned something about you.

Do you remember this?

Do you know where I'm going with this?

On the way back from Vegas, when we went to London.

Yes.

And I bumped into you completely randomly at the back of the plane.

Yeah, the back.

Where you were at the back and you had been dispatched to go and see the cabin bits where

the...

The crew rest area.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's it.

Correct.

Yeah.

That's the technical name.

And this proves my point.

I didn't know this about you.

You're a self-confessed plane geek, love a plane, right?

Yeah, I love planes.

I love planes.

I was lucky enough to go in the cockpit sometimes, like once or twice, of a real commercial big

plane, A350, and I was watching them.

I mean, they were just cruising at, you know, what, 37,000 or whatever.

So they weren't physically flying the plane themselves, but I was there, and it was amazing.

But yeah, I went to go and look at the crew rest area on that flight.

I remember right at the end.

Your eyes had lit up and it was really funny.

And you were like, look at this.

I just had no idea that planes were a thing for you.

What is it about them?

Has this always been a thing?

Yeah, I love it.

I mean, we fly a lot.

So I always like to check what plane we're flying on and how old it is and, you know, what it

looks like on the inside before we get on it and stuff.

And, you know, we always taxi around and I always look out at the private jets as well,

which is so cool.

So, yeah, I love planes.

I absolutely love them.

And seeing, you know, sometimes when we fly, for example, I came here via Dubai and I flew

on an A380.

And you're like, how does this thing, you know, take off in 2000 meters?

It's just, it's crazy.

I just love that, you know, the names for them.

This is a bit of a new world for me because so my fiance works in aviation.

So this...

And what does he do?

So he works in cargo.

So he works at Heathrow Airport and, yeah, is in charge of getting all stuff that's not

people across the world.

Well, thank God for him because, at one, without those people, it doesn't go around.

We need cargo.

This is exactly it.

But he knows all the names of all the planes and I was just like, I just look in the sky

and I'm like, oh yeah, it's a plane.

But you're the same.

You know all the names.

You know all the different ones.

I've only been exposed to this since meeting David by the half.

I just didn't realize this was a thing.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm not as severe as, I mean, sometimes when I arrive at the airport, I haven't seen

it many times.

But there's people standing there in the cold and the rain photographing the planes, which

is next level.

But, you know, I'm lucky enough to fly very often and I love planes.

I really, really love planes.

And, you know, at the end it's similar to racing.

It's just, I mean, it's similar to motorsport in the way that just how we create lift, they

do as well.

We just create it in the opposite direction.

So, you know, it's a very transferable skill.

Aerospace engineers.

Yeah.

And it's still the search for speed, just like the cycling.

I mean, it's a lot quicker, but it's still the search for speed.

Exactly.

Efficiency, speed.

I mean, it's all the same principles.

There's a lot of parallels that can be drawn.

That's maybe why I love them so much.

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Ollie Bearman, you have had some time off, albeit not a long period of time off.

When you did get some time to sit and relax and think,

I've just done my first season in Formula One.

How do you reflect on it? How do you look back on it now?

Yeah, first of all, it was nice to have some time to relax and think about it from an emotional perspective

and really think properly about what went well, what didn't go well,

and what I would like to change for this year.

First of all, I've built such a great knowledge base from my first year

and that's something that that experience can only really come by driving, if you know what I mean.

So I'm really happy about that.

I have a much clearer idea of what I want from the car, what I want from the team,

what I want from my physio, even down to the tiny things.

When do I want to travel to the races and how and everything like that?

It's so important. There's so many factors that go into a season

and I just have a much clearer idea about what I want now.

So that definitely helps.

I suppose that's something we don't often think about.

Little things like I don't want to travel, getting used to the schedule of it,

getting used to what makes you comfortable.

It's not just the on-track stuff, is it? There's so much off-track stuff.

No, for sure, for sure.

And there's particularly the start on the end of the year, there's some big time zone shifts.

And for example, I felt that I arrived a bit too late in Australia last year

and I wasn't quite on the time zone as early as I would have liked.

So now I have a clear idea.

Okay, I want to travel a few days earlier.

There are some strange ones like Miami, for example.

I arrived, I think on Wednesday and still by Friday,

I was waking up very early with jet lag, so things like that.

I understand now a bit clearer what I would like to do and that's a good example.

It felt to me, listen, correct me if I'm wrong,

it felt to me you rallied in the second half of the year in particular.

Not saying the first half of the year was bad,

but it felt to me like a big chunk of the F1 world,

second half of the season took up and took note really and was like,

oh, okay, here's Ollie, this guy could be around for many years to come.

Is that linked, do you think? Is that a fair comment?

And do you think it's maybe linked to those things that you were still discovering

in the first half of the season as much off trackers on it?

Yeah, certainly.

Definitely the off track things are incremental gains,

but the on track stuff is more clear and definitely I had time in the summer break

to take a few weeks off to look objectively at everything

and implement some more structure and more procedure for the second half of the year

and straight away we saw gains, so that's already a good case study

that what I did, the improvements came as a result of increased experience

and I just want to continue to build on those foundations that I made last year.

So what's a good second season look like?

Do you go in going, I want to achieve this, this and this,

or is it just a case of let's see what happens?

Well, it's tough to set obviously position-based goals

because we don't know where the car performance is yet

and it's really tough to do that if we don't know that.

So my goals are clear from myself what I want to achieve

and that is of course just to continue to improve, continue to build on my consistency

and improve my feedback to the team, improve my knowledge about the car

and just get me in a better place to perform.

On the position side of things we don't know where the car is,

if we turn up with the fourth fastest car

and my goal is to finish tenth in the championship

then we look a bit silly, so it's tough to set those type of goals

but my goals in terms of personal performance are very clear

and still very measurable even if it's not based on position.

While we're talking about the car, you may be a playing geek,

I'm a livery geek, I love a livery.

Big, big well done to Haas. I like a white livery.

Don't know if it's just me, I like a bit of white.

What do you think of the Haas livery? I think it's one of the best.

No, I think it's number one for sure. Of course I'm a bit biased

but I think it looks amazing. The guys did a great job

and I think the only people who were a bit less happy about that

were the mechanics who will have a hard time cleaning all the rubber

off of the white car all the time.

That's a big thing, big difference.

The cars are so dirty, especially in testing

when you're doing hundreds of laps a day.

After every run, the car comes in covered in rubber and dust and dirt

and it looks a little scuffy but they clean it very well.

I didn't think of that but can you thank them for me?

They'll be grateful for their service because I like a white livery.

Yes, it might not be the most practical but thank them for us.

Exactly, we're all thanking them for the hard work

because our car looks the best and that's the most important thing.

Going really F1 geek here, do you have a favourite livery?

This is what happens when I'm on my own on the podcast, Betty and Greg go

and I end up getting up because I'm just a very sad individual.

I end up asking questions like this. Have you got a favourite livery from back in the day?

Favourite livery? Let's test your livery knowledge.

Do you remember when Alfa Romeo did a shakedown on Valentine's Day

and they had a camera livery with hearts and things like that?

Yes, I do.

It was a flat livery with loads of little hearts and everything.

This? No, I'm impressed.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing that I'm about to save as much of a geek

with this sort of thing as me but that is a guy's good niche knowledge.

I like that.

That's an honourable mention.

Then in terms of livery, I think some of the alteraries with the black wings,

they look incredible.

But in terms of recent livery, I think the Hass one of this year is definitely up there.

Yes, you've praised that.

Jess and the PR team, you've ticked that box, don't worry.

Yes, she's happy, she's smiling anyway.

I thought she would be.

Are you two young...

I always love the Jordans.

Are you two young to remember this?

Is that the 7-up one?

7-up was Schumacher's first one.

I'm always like the yellow Jordans.

The beat on edge.

And buzzing horn.

I liked Jaguar as well when they were green.

I always liked those as well but that's showing my age

because that was the 2000s when you were probably not even born.

The cars are very colourful back then, weren't they?

Now we've gone on full weight saving.

They're carbon everywhere.

I think for people like you, you're a bit less happy.

But we're getting back to it.

This is a good step forward.

I should ask why we're talking about the cars.

Something more technical than just the paint job.

What are these things like to drive?

They're new, obviously all the rule changes.

We're hearing more power, we're hearing a bit less grit.

What's your take on it?

Obviously you've only done shakedown.

We're talking right at the start of testing.

You've got a lot more time to come.

What are your early thoughts?

This is early days for sure.

I felt a few differences.

We haven't set the car up properly in the shakedown week.

It was more to check reliability.

I was quite impressed by the power delivery.

Especially coming out of the corners.

It delivers an incredible amount of power.

Then of course you have a bit less downforce and smaller tyres.

Certainly in high speed corners you feel less grit.

It's normal.

But it's still certainly F1.

I still had a sore neck on the F1 takedown.

Sorry to hear that.

But also we want it to be tested, don't we?

Exactly.

The car is still performing at a very high level.

We've just been used to the highest level in the history of F1 in last years.

The car is also a bit lighter, which is great.

We would like them to be even more light, but that's okay.

We're going in the right direction.

They're supposedly getting there with that.

As I say, we're talking right at the start.

People are seeing them on track and apparently they're looking smaller.

Which is good for overtaking, particularly around tighter tracks.

Do they feel smaller?

They're still very big cars.

They're still almost four metres long.

And if you compare them to a car from the early 2000s,

they're still double the size.

And less colourful.

And less colourful, but it's not that it's half the size of the previous year.

The car is a very similar size to what we've had before.

I think the main thing that gives the illusion of a much smaller car

are the tyres, which are smaller.

You see that a bit more, I think, than the actual dimensions of the car,

which is in the order of four or five centimetres smaller.

It's not a crazy amount.

But yeah, it's definitely lighter, which is great.

It means the car is a bit more agile.

Yeah, that's a step forward.

Oli, this has been a pleasure.

Sorry it's just me.

Sorry that we're doing this first thing in the morning.

Therefore, Greg's on the radio. Betty's doing proper work.

She's around somewhere. You might see Betty.

Say hello to her, but this has been a pleasure.

We appreciate you coming on in the last year

and having some fun with us with us arresting you

and you arresting Greg and all that sort of thing.

We appreciate it.

I hope we can repeat that at some point.

We're volunteering to get arrested again.

We can repeat that.

But listen, we've really enjoyed you coming on.

And more importantly, we love seeing you thrive in your first season.

So we are going to see you more in the second.

Go well, enjoy testing.

I look forward to catching up with you soon.

Thanks a lot. See you soon.

Cheers, Oli.

Thanks, man.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Oli Bearman

on Brilliant Form, I thought.

I like him so much.

He's such a nice, friendly, warm, personable guy.

And what a great first season.

I don't think he could ask for much more in his first season.

He's stacked up against a very experienced teammate,

a race winner in Esteban Ocon.

And I think when you're in the first season in Formula One,

that's a really good test, a really good barometer of where you are

to go up against somebody like Esteban and stack up well.

Really good season for Oli.

And he's right. Listen, we don't fully know where Hass

are going to shake out after the shakedown yet.

But that's what he's going to be judged against.

If he continues to perform well up against Esteban,

he will continue to impress and continue to be linked with Ferrari.

Listen, he is a Ferrari junior driver.

Hass have a Ferrari engine.

So Hass have that relationship with Ferrari.

It would not be a surprise to me at all to see Oli in a Ferrari in the future.

If he keeps performing the way he is, I think it's realistic.

I think it's possible. Listen, thank you so much to Hass.

Thank you so much to Oli Berman for taking the time to join us

at the start of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

We will be back at the end of pre-season testing to debrief it.

I don't know if you can hear.

Thank you, by the way, for all the comments about our previous interviews

at the start of the season.

So we went out to America to speak to Max Verstappen,

Ovid Lindblad, Isaac Hadja, we then spoke to the McLaren boys,

Landon Orriss and Oscar Piastri, which have gone down so well.

Oscar met Derek, my new golden retriever puppy.

I don't know if you can hear in the background.

He's been a very good boy sat in his bed while I've been doing this interview.

He's now starting to be less than happy and have a bit of a cry.

So yeah, go and listen to those interviews, check those out.

They are on this feed.

And don't forget to subscribe because it's quite possible

that we could pop up with another driver interview anytime.

So don't forget to like and subscribe.

We are fast curious part on social media.

Keep sending any questions.

I'm going to calm a golden retriever puppy called Derek.

Enjoy testing. We'll be back soon.

Bye for now.

You

0:00

21:11

Bearman in Bahrain! | Ollie talks Taylor's new album, F1 liveries and hopes for 2026

Formula One

Shakedown Week

Porsche Cayman

suspension

performance brakes

daily driver

restomod

livery

Alfa Romeo

downforce

tyres

Formula 1

high level

lighter car

Ferrari

Haas

pre-season testing

About this episode

Original notes