Ollie Bearman is not your average 18-year-old. While his contemporaries at secondary school in Essex were studying for their A-levels, he was behind the wheel of a racing car, as a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy.
While his peers are now in their first year at university and presumably subsisting on beer and baked beans, Ollie is making headlines for his Formula 1 debut at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
On Saturday, Ollie became the third-youngest driver in the history of the sport, and the youngest Briton ever to compete in a Formula 1 Grand Prix.
When he finished seventh, his performance prompted 1996 world champion Damon Hill to declare, "A star is born."
In fact, this star was born in 2005 in the London borough of Havering to parents David and Terri. He grew up in Chelmsford, the eldest of three children, and attended King Edward VI Grammar School (KEGS), where he performed well and excelled in mathematics and English.
But from an early age his passions lay elsewhere. He went karting for the first time when he was five. By the time he was eight, he had started motor racing at club level British karting. After cutting his teeth on the track at Buckmore Park in Kent, he made rapid progress in every respect, taking fourth place in the British National Cadet Championship within a few years.
Copies of his school newsletter chart his extracurricular development: "Oliver Bearman in Year 7 has competed in national karting championships," the school announced in 2017. "Many congratulations to Oliver Bearman from Year 9 who took part in the IAME Karting Winter Cup in Valencia recently alongside almost 60 boys from across Europe," came the school news in 2019 after he won that final.
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Despite balancing school and racing, he still achieved As and A stars in his strongest subjects.
But by 2021 he was off, leaving KEGS - despite the initial reservations of his "pro-education" mother - and attending the Ferrari academy in the northern Italian city of Modena. "It was like going to college two years earlier," he says.
Since then, the people of his alma mater have watched his success from afar. "We are delighted with Ollie's phenomenal performance this weekend," said KEGS head teacher Tom Carter. "It was clear during his time at KEGS how completely committed he was to racing, and it's great to see it paying off in such a spectacular way."
In the years since choosing motorsport in Italy over A-levels, Ollie has managed to pick up not only a bit of Italian, but also a distinctive Italian accent when speaking his native language. "Maybe I was a bit lucky I didn't get the Essex accent," he joked.
Perhaps he has had some luck in other ways as motorsport runs in the family, meaning he has always been in the paddocks. Ollie's father, uncle and grandfather have all participated at various levels and Ollie is the first to acknowledge that his family's support has been crucial.
"Racing was always in my family - on my dad's side," he said during an interview with YouTuber Tommo in January, describing his "thrill-seeker" origins. It was watching his relatives' races that gave him the bug, Ollie explained.
His father, David Bearman, 45, is the founder and CEO of Aventum Group, a global insurance company. When Ollie was karting as a child, he took him on track walks. "He clearly had a lot more knowledge than I did," Ollie has said.
David also set a precedent for being precocious, albeit in a different arena. He was only 18 when he founded the current Aventum Group, without external investments. He is also the chairman of Rokstone Group, an insurance company, and the CEO of Consilium, an insurance broker.
Aventum became title sponsor of Ollie, who, following his own dreams, switched from karting to Formula 4 and won the Italian and German F4 titles in 2021. Then came Formula 3 and Formula 2, with Ollie taking four F2 race wins, three pole positions and six podiums before making his F1 weekend debut in first practice at the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix and again that year at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Ollie's younger brother Thomas, 14, is also a kart racer, while his younger sister Amalie, 12, has taken up jumping. The exploits of all three are lovingly documented on Terri's Instagram page.
If this has been Ollie's weekend, that doesn't mean he hasn't already built up quite a fan base. The 6ft tall, fresh-faced teen, who only passed his driving test last May, has branched out into lifestyle content with a slickly produced YouTube channel that has almost 25,000 subscribers. Called The bear supplies it shows him engaging in non-motorsport activities such as buying perfume, discussing his music playlists, rolling out pasta and learning to slice Spanish ham.
Ollie does more than drive, you see - although an article about him on the Aventum website from 2022 notes: "When asked about interests outside motorsport, it's a real struggle. He finds television boring, and when he's not working on fitness with his personal trainer, he spends most of the free time he gets at home practicing on a racing simulator. Motorsport is more than just a passion: motorsport is Ollie's life."
Ollie himself confirmed at the time: "It consumes my life, so I always think about it."
His father, who was a football fan as a child, tried to convince him to play and promised him a new pair of shoes every week. But Ollie joked that he has "two left feet", and is now less interested in the beautiful game (although he has named Lionel Messi as a sportsman he admires outside motorsport).
He is reportedly dating Estelle Ogilvy, a London-based law student and fashion influencer, who goes by the name Silly Lettuce on TikTok and Instagram. The couple seems to do everything they can to keep their relationship out of the spotlight. A photo of them posted on social media last week was apparently quickly deleted.
As is the case for any athlete, Ollie's success has involved a degree of sacrifice. "Living abroad has its pros and cons," he told Tommo. "The disadvantages are of course missing my family. I don't see them that often. I mainly see them during the races... It's nice to come home."
What comes next for the affable rising star remains to be seen, but it's safe to assume all eyes will be on his career path. For now, it looks like his feet are staying on the ground. After his exploits on Saturday, he told Sky Sports F1: "I am now back on earth and back to reality." Then he added, with some understatement: "I think I did well today."
