Esteban Ocon has made clear that Haas “need to get the consistency together” over the second half of the Formula 1 season, after the team struggled for pace at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Haas have experienced a rollercoaster 2025 so far, with some weekends yielding Q3 appearances and points finishes, and others featuring Q1 exits followed by painful races.
After starting and finishing fifth in the Belgian Grand Prix Sprint a week earlier, Ocon could not make it over the first Qualifying hurdle at the Hungaroring and lined up all the way back in 17th.
He progressed to the fringes of the top-10 positions on an ambitious one-stop strategy, but lost the places that had been gained to two-stopping rivals as the race developed and ultimately took the chequered flag in 16th.
“A difficult day, for sure,” Ocon summed up afterwards. “I think we need to have a good look [at] what if we’d used another strategy, if it would have given us anything. I don’t think so, in hindsight.
“I think just coming out of the car now we struggled a little bit, especially towards the end to [keep] the cars behind that were a bit quicker on fresher tyres. We also got ahead of them, so we gave ourselves the opportunity.
“It was a solid start, but after that we need to work a little bit more on how to get the car a little bit more under control and get more pace throughout the race.”
Addressing Haas’ up-and-down form, he added: “Looking at this first half, I think there are some positives, definitely. We’ve scored a decent amount of points, but we are not consistent enough and where we want to be every single time. We’ll give it everything for the next half.
“If you look at Spa, we had mega performance, it was a great weekend. We are not there every single weekend, and this is where we need to get the consistency together. We are working on that. I have full trust behind the team and it’s far from over this season.”
On the other side of the Haas garage, Ollie Bearman started in a more promising 11th and moved into the top 10 on the opening lap, only for his planned one-stop race to come undone by rear floor damage in the second stint.
“I managed to run in P10 for the first stint, but it was really clinging on for that entire stint,” explained Bearman. “I was really struggling with my feeling with the car, just massive oversteer for the whole stint.
“In the second stint it looks like we picked up some damage somewhere, because we saw a big drop in [aerodynamic] loads. At that point it was clear that we couldn’t finish the race.”
He continued: “It’s disappointing. I was just surviving, essentially, which is not a good feeling in a race. We need to kind of understand why that was the case, because in the past few races I’ve felt really good in race trim. This weekend it hasn’t been the case, so we need to have a look.”
Haas head into the summer break holding ninth in the Teams’ Championship on 35 points, 15 clear of last-placed Alpine and 10 behind eighth-placed Racing Bulls.
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