TREMAYNE: Bearman’s F1 debut was one of the most accomplished and impressive I’ve witnessed in 36 years of F1 reporting

Okay, Nigel Mansell won his first race in a Ferrari, but the man who finally went on to win the World Championship he deserved with Williams in 1992 had by that stage – Brazil, 1989 – competed in 122 Grands Prix and already won 13.

By contrast, when he took a sensational seventh place last Saturday evening in Jeddah, Ollie Bearman – the 12th Briton to race a works Ferrari – had driven but two FP1 sessions for Haas (in Mexico and Abu Dhabi last year) and FP3 and qualifying in Jeddah in the SF-24 he’d taken over from the incapacitated Carlos Sainz.

Let’s just take a step back and consider that calmly for a moment.