Haas started the season strongly, with Ollie Bearman delivering a big haul of points at the opening two races to put the American outfit in the thick of the midfield fight – but since bolting on their first big upgrade package, their form has faded.
They failed to score in Barcelona-Catalunya, Bearman retiring from the race while Esteban Ocon could only finish 13th after starting down in P17. The Frenchman did at least score in Monaco, although he also benefitted from a race where many others were penalised.
Montreal and Monaco are very unique tracks and Haas hoped that the more traditional nature of the Barcelona circuit would allow the team to further understand their upgrades and thus find a better set-up for the VF-26, but that did not appear to be the case.
Haas ‘weren’t good enough’
Team Principal Ayao Komatsu was forced to watch two of Haas’ big rivals score on Sunday, as Alpine and Racing Bulls brought both cars home in the points, and he did not mince his words afterwards.
“This weekend the car wasn’t quick enough and I think operationally we weren’t good enough,” he said.
“If you look at part of the race where Ollie was on the hard tyre, his pace was decent, but from day one this weekend we didn’t operate at the level we should be operating at and that has had a knock-on effect into today.
“In the race, communication wasn’t good enough. Yes, the car needs to be improved and be faster, but we’re not getting the best out of it. As a team we need to look at ourselves and improve very quickly.”
One lap pace as much a concern as race pace
With their drivers generally off the pace in practice, it was no surprise to see Ocon exit Qualifying in Q1, while Bearman could only manage P15 over one lap.
Bearman has made Q3 once this year and SQ3 once, both in China where the track seemed to suit the car. But since then he has exited in Q1 twice and Q2 three times, while Ocon has yet to make Q3 at all.
The Frenchman has qualified 17th for the last three Grands Prix, ever since the upgrades went onto his car. And it is safe to say, neither driver was in a particularly jovial mood after another tough afternoon on Sunday.
“It was a very difficult race. We didn’t manage to keep the tyres alive and make them hold the whole race,” explained Ocon.
“We had to do three stops because we couldn’t hold the rear tyres, they were completely finished every time we were doing a stint. It was very painful and we tried to hold on, but we had no pace at the end of the race.
“We need to deep dive into the set-up, I think we got it wrong this weekend from FP2 to now, so hopefully we can do something better in Austria.”
Double DNF for Bearman
Bearman failed to finish in Monaco after some unfortunate first lap contact with his team mate amongst others, but he did make it through the opening laps in Barcelona.
But then came some reliability issues, with the team calling him back to the pits to retire the car.
“It was tough, but we were expecting that. I don’t think we were anywhere out of position, if anything we were further forward than we were meant to be with some good pace,” he said.
“Unfortunately, with a few laps to go I was running in P13, which would’ve turned into P11 with the two cars ahead retiring, and there was an issue with the car, so we had to retire.
“We’ve got some work to do, it’s been a tough weekend and we’re going to put our heads together, figure it out and improve for the next race.”
