São Paulo Grand Prix: Practice Recap

FP1 saw the Formula 1 debut of Rafael Câmara, the 21-year-old Brazilian making his first career start on home-soil having last month been announced as one of TGR Haas F1 Team’s full-time driver signings for the 2027 FIA Formula 1 World Championship. Câmara, driving the VF-26 for the first time, sampled both the Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium and Red soft tires in the session. A best lap of 1:13.696, on the softs, earned Câmara P18 on the timing screens. Bearman ran an identical tire program – the Briton enjoying a more balanced car on the softs to clock P12 at the checkered flag courtesy of a 1:12.837 fast lap.

In FP2 both Bearman and Câmara kicked off their run plans on the White hard tire, before switching onto soft rubber for quali sims ahead of Saturday’s knockout qualifying. Bearman recorded a fastest tour of 1:11.991 to hold P10 overall. Câmara banked a best lap of 1:12.561 to claim P16 in the session. High-fuel runs rounded out Friday’s track time in São Paulo – Câmara running the softs with Bearman once again on the hard tire before pitting for softs.

TGR Haas F1 Team ran a total of 123 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 – 63 by Bearman, with 60 from Câmara.

Ollie Bearman:

“It was a decent day and I was happy with the car. Sometimes it was a bit more challenging than others, but we found a decent baseline. I’m proud of the guys and we’ll keep working overnight to find a bit more to see what we can do in qualifying – not knowing what weather conditions we may be running in.”

Rafael Câmara:

“It’s been a really nice weekend so far, really special. Going into FP1 was getting a bit more emotional, with the intensity of the crowd in front of you and fans getting excited. Once you get into the car, and you start driving, it goes back to the normal thing that you’ve been doing your whole life. There’s a lot going on, but so far it’s been a good two sessions, learning a lot and improving throughout the day. Tonight, I’ll work with the team and put more in place for tomorrow.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“Overall, it’s been a decent Friday. It’s the first day for our debutant Rafa in his home country, so there was a lot going on, but he and the team have handled the situation very well. He’s very calm with a professional approach, and had two solid sessions, so I’m very pleased with that and think we’ve got off to a good start. On Ollie’s side, in FP1 he wasn’t as happy with the car as he had been previously, but we’ve actually got a pretty decent reference from other races, and in FP2 he was happier, especially on the softs. We really couldn’t get the hard tires working, so that’s something we’ve got to look into. On quali runs, because of the difference in hards and softs, we left some performance out there. I think the baseline is good, and it’s now at the fine-tuning stage of understanding what we can do better on the medium and hard compounds, and at the same time, getting a bit more out of the soft tire.”