Not even the observed evolution in the car’s behavior was enough to put Haas in the fight for better positions in the qualifying session of the Belgian Grand Prix of Formula 1. The team finished the session at Spa-Francorchamps with Oliver Bearman in 16th and Esteban Ocon in 18th, reinforcing that there is still a significant performance deficit to be overcome.
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Despite the result, the team left the session with different assessments among its drivers. While Bearman praised the car’s balance and considered he had one of his best qualifying sessions in terms of execution, Ocon faced difficulties again and could not reproduce the performance shown earlier.
“It was a tough day, and we weren’t fast enough to be in the fight for Q3. We did our best, and our best was P16. I feel it was one of my best qualifying sessions in terms of execution. All my laps were very well done and the times kept improving,” said Bearman.
The Briton admitted, however, that Haas’s overall performance remains below expectations: “On the performance side, I’m not happy, no one on the team is happy, and we need to keep working. The positive point is that the car’s balance took a big step compared to the last stage,” he said.
Ocon highlighted that Haas especially struggles on the straights at Spa. According to the Frenchman, the time loss on this type of section reached almost half a second, forcing the team to seek alternatives during the session: “We knew it would be a difficult session because we have a big deficit in straight-line speed compared to where we should be,” he explained.
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“We were trying to lose less time by staying close to another car. The lap was good, the team was satisfied and so was I, but with this difficulty and some loss of rear downforce, it would always be complicated. We did the maximum with what we had,” he added.
The team principal, Ayao Komatsu, described Saturday as a day of mixed feelings. According to the manager, Bearman extracted practically everything from the car, despite having lost some time by accidentally pressing a steering wheel button on his last lap in Q2.
On the other hand, Komatsu admitted concern about Ocon’s situation, who could not find the same setup as his teammate: “Esteban was happy with the car in FP2, so we still don’t understand why that changed. We also had an energy usage problem in the qualifying session, but even without that, he wouldn’t have matched Ollie’s time today. We know that when everything works as it should, both drivers are satisfied. We are going in the right direction, but we need to find more performance in the car,” he concluded.
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