Ayao Komatsu has admitted that Haas “expected more” from Esteban Ocon in 2025, with the team boss anticipating that the driver will make “more [of a] contribution” during the upcoming campaign following talks over the winter.
Ocon joined the American outfit last season off the back of a five-year stint with the Alpine/former Renault squad, having also previously raced for Manor and Force India since his debut in 2016 as well as spending a year as a reserve driver for Mercedes.
Paired with rookie Ollie Bearman, Ocon ended the season behind his team mate in the Drivers’ Championship – and while the pair drew equal in the race day head-to-heads, Bearman outscored Ocon in Qualifying trim on 14 to 10.
Speaking to a select group of media, including F1.com, Komatsu spoke positively about the Frenchman’s approach at the recent Barcelona Shakedown after discussions during the off-season.
“We’ve had a very good ongoing talk over the winter, preparing for this pre-season, and then we understand each other,” the Team Principal explained. “He’s totally clear on what our team is expecting of him, and also I’m totally clear on what he needs from the team, so we cleared everything and set everything up before the Barcelona Shakedown, so I’m really happy with that.
“And then the way he approached the Barcelona test, again, absolutely progressed, so we’re working better together as a team. Esteban and Ollie are working well together – we’ve got to [work] better together to make progress as quickly as possible.
“At some of the testing we did, Esteban and Ollie’s feedback was very, very similar which is really nice in these brand-new regulations.
“I think he understands who we are in terms of size of the team, the resource and how we need to prioritise, but also he understood the way of working a bit better ahead of the Barcelona testing, especially in a team like us, so I’m sure he can make more [of a] contribution this year.”
Pushed on whether addressing the size of the team is what he was referring to in “clearing” things with Ocon, Komatsu responded: “No, it’s not just that. If you look purely at a sporting result, without going into details, for sure nobody is satisfied with Esteban’s sporting result last year.
“He’s a team mate against a rookie – yes, an amazing rookie, but nonetheless he’s got 10 years of F1 under his belt. He’s a race winner, he’s a podium finisher, so we expected more from him.
“Obviously it’s not totally his fault. It’s 50/50 – sometimes it’s that as a team we couldn’t give him the car that he was comfortable [with], especially in Qualifying, and sometimes that was exaggerated much more than others.
“Look at Baku – he really wasn’t happy with the braking performance and he was miles off in the Qualifying pace. Yes, Baku happened to be one of Ollie’s strongest circuits, but we didn’t expect Esteban to be so far off.
“But again, there’s not one reason – it’s not just the driver, it’s not just the team, and each instance is different. There’s no common underlining factor, but it’s just the process, how we work together to get to the bottom of it so much quicker and then put things in place for the next race.”
Komatsu is hopeful that this is an area that the whole Haas team can improve on going forward, adding: “That’s the way I feel all of us together – team and drivers – didn’t do it very well last year, because I really felt like we should have got on top of that quicker.
“Look at Abu Dhabi – on Friday he was completely off the pace, but [on Saturday] he was on the pace. Again, it’s not just one big thing – I would say it’s a few things that really trigger the snowball effect, and we really have got to get on top of those things quicker because Esteban’s potential is clear.
“If you look at Abu Dhabi and what he could do on Saturday and Sunday [where he finished P7], coming off the back of a poor Friday, that’s the talent he has and that’s the capability he has, and we’ve got to harness that. We’ve got to make sure we use that, because we really need two drivers this year – we needed it last year, but we need more this year.”
