Thomas Bearman: Age, F4 Career and Everything You Need to Know About Ollie Bearman’s Brother

If you’ve spent any time on F1 Twitter (X, whatever we’re calling it this week) over the last year, you’ll have clocked the surname Bearman popping up in more than one paddock. Everyone knows Ollie, Haas’s home grown British hope, but there’s a second Bearman quietly working his way up the ladder, and the questions about him are only getting louder. Who is Thomas Bearman? How old is he? Is he actually any good, or is he just riding his brother’s coattails into every junior series press release going?

We’ve gone through the archives, the team announcements and a fair few dodgy “net worth” listicles that frankly should know better given the lad is still a teenager, to put together the most complete and honest profile of Thomas Bearman on the internet. No filler, no made up numbers, just the facts and a bit of our own opinion on where this is all heading.

Who Is Thomas Bearman?

Thomas Bearman is a British racing driver from Chelmsford, Essex, currently competing in the Italian F4 Championship for Van Amersfoort Racing. He’s also, for better or worse, permanently introduced as “the brother of” in nearly every headline written about him, because his older brother Ollie is a full time Haas F1 driver on the current grid.

Thomas started karting at eight years old and has been grinding through the junior single seater ladder in proper, unglamorous fashion ever since: a couple of karting seasons that never produced a major title, a single seater debut in Euro 4, a full campaign in British F4, a Formula Winter Series runner up finish, and now his first season in Italian F4, the same series his brother won outright back in 2021.

Is Thomas Bearman Related to Oliver Bearman?

Yes, and it’s about as close as it gets. Thomas is Ollie Bearman’s younger brother, full blood, same parents, same house in Chelmsford growing up. Their dad, David Bearman, is the founder and CEO of insurance firm Aventum Group, and by all accounts the reason the boys got into karts in the first place, he raced himself as an amateur years ago.

Here’s the bit that most articles about Ollie completely skip when they write about Thomas: Ollie’s F1 race number, 87, isn’t a random pick. It’s a direct nod to his brother. Ollie was born on 8 May, Thomas was born on 7 August, and their dad raced with the number 87 himself back in the day. Put the two birthdays together and you get 8 and 7. It’s a proper family tribute hiding in plain sight on the side of a Haas F1 car every single race weekend, and honestly it’s one of the nicer stories in the current paddock.

There’s also a third sibling, a sister named Amalie, who keeps a much lower profile and doesn’t appear to be involved in racing.

Thomas Bearman Age, Birthday and Date of Birth

Right, the bit everyone’s actually searching for. Thomas Bearman was born on 7 August 2009 in Chelmsford, Essex, which makes him 16 years old as of writing this in July 2026. His birthday falls in the middle of the European summer, which is usually smack in the middle of an F4 season, so don’t be surprised if you see him celebrating it trackside rather than at home with a cake.

Thomas Bearman’s Racing Career So Far

Thomas’s journey has followed the classic British junior racing template almost to the letter, karts first, then a cautious step up into single seaters once the results and the budget allowed it.

The step to Van Amersfoort Racing for 2026 is the one worth paying attention to. VAR is the same Dutch outfit that took Ollie to back to back Italian F4 and ADAC F4 titles in 2021, and they don’t tend to sign drivers as a favour. Thomas made the move to Misano this year in the same black and orange liveried Tatuus, car number 87 on the nose, same as his brother wore five years earlier. Whether history repeats itself is another matter entirely, and we’ll get to that.

Thomas Bearman F4 Number and Car

Thomas races with the number 87 in Italian F4, the same number his brother uses in Formula 1 and the same one their dad raced with. In an era where most junior drivers just grab whatever’s left on the entry list, it’s genuinely nice to see a bit of family sentiment on the side of the car rather than a sponsor logo.

His current machinery is the Tatuus F4-T421, standard spec across Italian F4, so don’t expect any car number related performance edge, the field is as close to equal as junior racing gets.

Thomas Bearman vs Ollie Bearman: A Fair Comparison

This is where we’re going to be a bit more critical than most of the fluff pieces out there. It’s easy to slap “the next Bearman” on a headline, it’s harder to actually check whether the results back that up. So we did.

Reading it plainly, Ollie’s junior record was frankly exceptional, he was cleaning up karting titles well before he got anywhere near a single seater and then went and won two F4 championships in the same year on his first attempt. Thomas has a solid, honest CV, a British F4 race win, a Winter Series runner up finish, steady progress, but nothing that screams “future world champion” just yet. That’s not a knock on the kid, most drivers on the grid didn’t win everything at 16 either, but it’s worth being honest about rather than pretending every Bearman is destined for the same trajectory just because of the surname. Being backed by a family with the means to fund a proper junior programme, which Thomas clearly is, gets you a seat. It doesn’t guarantee the results, the racecraft still has to show up on Sunday.

Does Thomas Bearman Have a Disability?

We’ve seen this search term come up a fair bit, and to be blunt, there’s no public record, statement or reporting anywhere suggesting Thomas Bearman has a disability. We suspect this is either search engine autocomplete noise or people mixing him up with someone else entirely. If that ever changes and it becomes something he or his family speak about publicly, we’ll update this article, but we’re not going to speculate on someone’s health for the sake of a headline.

Thomas Bearman Net Worth, Girlfriend and Personal Life

Right, let’s address the elephant in the room, because half the internet seems obsessed with slapping a dollar figure and a relationship status on a teenager who hasn’t even finished school yet.

We couldn’t find any credible, sourced figure for Thomas Bearman’s net worth, and we’d honestly be suspicious of any site that gives you one. He’s 16, racing in F4 on what is almost certainly still a family funded budget (junior single seater racing costs serious money, and prize funds at this level are basically nonexistent). Any “net worth” number floating around for him is a guess dressed up as a fact, usually recycled from articles about his brother.

Same goes for his relationship status. There’s no confirmed information about Thomas Bearman having a girlfriend, and given he’s a minor, we’re not going to go digging for gossip or reporting on his personal life beyond what’s already public through his own racing career. Frankly, more outlets covering junior drivers should apply the same standard.

Thomas Bearman’s School and Education

Thomas grew up in Chelmsford, the same area his brother did, and while Ollie’s education is well documented (he attended King Edward VI Grammar School before leaving at 16 to join the Ferrari Driver Academy), Thomas hasn’t publicly confirmed which school he attends or attended. Given his racing calendar, it’s likely he’s balanced some form of school alongside his junior career, as most young British drivers do, but we won’t put a specific school name to him without a proper source, and neither should anyone else covering this story.

Thomas Bearman’s Logo and Helmet

Thomas has his own personal branding, distinct from his brother’s, which is a smart move for a young driver trying to build an identity beyond “Ollie’s brother.” It made a public appearance recently in an unexpected way: when Ollie bought Thomas an electric Fiat Topolino as a Christmas gift (a tiny quadricycle that’s road legal for under 18s in countries like France and Monaco), he had it custom painted with Thomas’s personal logo, calling it out specifically in interviews as something done just for his brother. It’s a small detail, but it tells you the branding groundwork is already being laid, sponsors and management types love a driver with an identity of their own rather than just a shared surname.

Thomas Bearman in 2026

As things stand, Thomas Bearman is contesting his rookie season in the Italian F4 Championship with Van Amersfoort Racing, having wrapped up 2025 as runner up in the Formula Winter Series with the same team. It’s a sensible, unhurried progression, no jump straight to F3, no shortcuts, just another season learning a new car, a new championship and, for the first time, circuits entirely on foreign soil since Italian F4 doesn’t venture outside the country’s borders.

Realistically, don’t expect Thomas Bearman in F1 discussions any time soon, and honestly that’s a good thing. Ollie’s own rise through Formula 1’s ladder, F4 to F3 to F2 to a Ferrari super sub call up, took the best part of four years even as one of the most highly rated junior drivers of his generation. Thomas is still finding his feet in F4. There’s no need to manufacture hype around a 16 year old just because journalists (including us, to a point) like a good sibling story.

The Bottom Line

Thomas Bearman is a genuine, hard working junior racing driver with a famous surname and a family that clearly backs motorsport properly. He’s not a clone of his brother, and the junior results so far suggest he’s on a steadier, slower burn rather than the meteoric rise Ollie had. Whether that changes in Italian F4 this year remains to be seen, and we’ll be covering his results as the season goes on. For now, the honest answer to “is Thomas Bearman going to be the next big thing” is: ask us again in a couple of seasons.

If you fancy testing your own reflexes against the sort of reaction times drivers like Ollie (and one day, maybe Thomas) rely on every single race, have a go on our