Oliver Bearman provided the feel good story of Formula 1's Mexico Grand Prix with an opportunistic drive to fourth, but it would be too easy to ascribe his breakthrough result to a lucky break.
Haas introduced late-season upgrades in Austin which were long in the making, breaking a midfield trend where most competitors have long been focused on 2026. According to team boss Ayao Komatsu, the effect of the new floor was "very positive".
Despite a tricky start to the Austin sprint weekend, the upgrades allowed Bearman to qualify eighth and finish ninth, giving Haas a much-needed shot in the arm as it aimed to move from next-to-bottom in the constructors’ standings.
His Austin performance prompted Bearman, who still needed one clean weekend without penalty points to avoid risking a race ban, to issue the following words. "Hopefully we're the fastest car in the midfield, and then we won't be fighting with anyone. That's the plan."
Bearman's prediction would turn out to be 50% correct, but in the best way possible.
The Briton was a bit miffed at the prospect of giving up FP1 to Toyota's Ryo Hirakawa in Mexico, having never had the benefit of racing at the unique, low-grip Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with the complexities that come with racing at 2,200 metres above sea level.
But FP2 showed that Haas had some serious race pace, with Bearman's soft-tyre stint second on the list in between the two McLarens. That long run data obviously needed to be taken with a pinch of salt, and Bearman did appear to suffer from more tyre degradation than the cars around him. But adjusting for the tyre delta, his team-mate Esteban Ocon also looked competitive on his hard-tyre run.
In qualifying, Haas' car appeared more tricky to balance, but it was still enough for Bearman to outqualify Ocon for the sixth consecutive occasion and scrape through to Q3, where he felt his 10th spot was "bittersweet" - not a bad sign.
Carlos Sainz's five-place penalty saw Bearman launch from ninth on the grid, tucking in along the inside down the long run towards Turn 1. Bearman had an excellent view of the local lawnmower exhibition, as George Russell would describe it, and by virtue of cars going off into the grass the 20-year-old swiftly moved up to sixth.
A similar scenario occurred on lap 6 when Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen went off while battling each other, a fight which also baulked Russell and saw Bearman go up the inside of Turn 6 with an opportunistic move that netted him fourth.
Bearman showed a lot of racecraft, even if he admitted the prospect of going wheel to wheel with Verstappen made him sweat bullets.
"I had a good start. I slotted myself between the two Mercs," recalled Bearman. "And then Hamilton and Max had a bit of a coming together and I benefited from that too. Honestly, I was shitting myself going side by side with Max, but it's really cool to go wheel to wheel with these people that I've been watching since I started watching F1. I had him in my mirrors for a long time, so it was probably the most pressure I've ever had in a race scenario."
Of the myriad ways to suffer Montezuma's Revenge in Mexico City, going toe to toe with a four-time world champion would have been a pretty understandable one. But Bearman did well to prevent any mishaps as he held off Verstappen through the Esses, braking very late into Turn 7 that saw him just about keep his car pointed in the right direction.
Bearman suddenly found himself in fourth. Through sheer luck? The rookie was certainly helped by the shenanigans taking place ahead of him, but his next two stints would answer that question emphatically.
On softs he showed great pace to control Verstappen, and even slightly pull ahead of the medium-shod Red Bull. That pace, as well as Hamilton's 10-second penalty, even made Bearman and his Haas team dream of a breakthrough podium after the first round of pitstops, with Bearman's father ecstatic as his son carved his way past Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda who was yet to stop.
In Bearman's mirrors the deep blue hues of Verstappen's RB21 had been replaced by the silver and grey of Andrea Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes, and soon after the sister car of Russell who had eventually been let through following a fiery radio exchange, but none found a way past.
What was still looking like a one-stopper for most frontrunners then changed as Bearman formed a DRS train with the two Mercedes drivers and Oscar Piastri, who were all stuck in the dirty air.
In a bid to salvage as many points as possible, and potentially his championship lead, Piastri pulled the trigger on a chain of events that left Haas with a decision to make, the Australian converting to a two-stopper in a bid to find some valuable clear air.
That triggered a response from Russell and Antonelli, and Haas also decided to cover the Australian with Bearman. It unleashed Verstappen, who probably couldn't believe his luck that the seas parted and the throng of cars ahead handed him a clear track to nurse his soft tyres to the end on a one-stopper, which he did with a mesmerisingly consistent stint. Verstappen disappeared out of sight.
Did Bearman and Haas give up a potential podium there and then? Considering the Dutchman eventually came within a whisker of picking off Leclerc for second, that's very unlikely.
But they couldn't have known that at the time - even Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase didn't know whether his man was on a one or a two-stop, as revealed by an amusing wrong channel moment on the team radio.
Therefore, it was still a pragmatic choice for Haas to cover those cars off with an eye on the constructors' standings. If Bearman hadn't pitted, he would have risked being passed by all three and drop to seventh, which would not have been enough to pass Sauber in the standings.
"From what we understood, I was bringing that tyre to the end until I got called to box," Bearman said. "I think in our position, it would have been a bit risky trying to stay out and go for the podium and potentially finish sixth or seventh. I think we did the right choice by consolidating, even if it maybe stopped us from having the chance of a podium."
Haas' second pitstop did have the desired effect of protecting against the undercut, although this time the dynamic behind him had changed once more, with Piastri first undercutting Antonelli and then passing Russell in the faster McLaren.
But after a tense final 12 laps Bearman held firm, aided by a late virtual safety car that also robbed Verstappen of a chance to pass Leclerc. But afterwards even Piastri admitted it would have been "very difficult" to pass Bearman, who took a hard-earned fourth equalling Haas' best-ever result, and eclipsing his own sixth place in Zandvoort. An emotional exchange followed with his family and his team, but amid all that elation Bearman also made a correct analysis of his own race.
"Well, definitely it was luck,” he said. “If I finished lap five in 10th like I started, then I probably would have finished ninth or eighth. But luckily, we managed to put the car in the right place and sometimes that happens.
"But actually, we also had the pace to stay there. I had Max behind me in the first stint, then Kimi, then I had George and Oscar - and they all couldn't attack me. So we were doing something right."
They say it's better to be lucky than good. Bearman proved to be both.
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