To say Haas driver Ollie Bearman is having a pretty terrible racing weekend at the F1 Australian GP is an understatement, and it has not been much better on the pace side for Esteban Ocon.
Following a crash in FP2 as he got wide at turn 10, he beached himself in the gravel at turn 11 in FP3 as he caught the grass on the left hand side turning into the corner.
In qualifying, he never set a time as a gearbox problem completed a very miserable 24 hours.
Ollie Bearman holds his hands up following F1 Australian GP qualifying
Speaking in the print media zone after qualifying, the young British driver admitted his errors were very clumsy.
“Yeah, I mean a pretty unforgiving circuit and two seemingly small errors giving big consequences and missing out on all of my running.
“Clumsiness from my side to make these errors honestly and that’s not good enough.
“And then of course the gearbox issue in the qualifying pretty much sums up what we’ve had so far.
“Yeah, I just dipped a wheel on the grass [on his FP3 mistake]. That’s it.”
Bearman vowing to keep his chin up
Although he has had a terrible start at the F1 Australian GP in his first race weekend as a full-time F1 driver, the multi-time F2 race winner is not going to let it get to him.
As he showed in Jeddah, Baku and Interlagos last year, the talent and speed is there.
The most concerning thing for Haas right now is a lack of pace, however. They are the slowest team in Melbourne this weekend in the dry.
“Exactly, I mean it’s a long season ahead of us. I’m not going to get down about two days in a very long season.
“I think as a team we’re struggling a bit more than we anticipated and more than we looked in Bahrain. So we’ve got a bit of work to do on that side of things, on pure car performance.
“And of course I haven’t helped out very much because the team’s pretty much been running with one car all weekend.”
Komatsu keeps his spirits up
Asked what team principal Ayao Komatsu has said to him, the main thing is trying to find more speed from the VF-25.
Nonetheless, the 19-year-old confirmed that the Japanese engineer has been supportive.
“No, just that we’re struggling and we need to work, of course.
“I think the first thing is that I’m my biggest critic and I’m the most disappointed in myself, and I need to rectify that, but nothing, only encouragement [from Komatsu].”
Haas not having performance over a single lap at the F1 Australian GP
Ollie Bearman says Haas plainly lack qualifying speed at Albert Park as Sauber produced better pace in qualifying for the F1 Australian GP on Sunday. The Swiss-based team brought updates to Albert Park and they paid off.
“Just pure performance really.
“It’s tough to say. Obviously I haven’t done enough laps to really feel what the car is handling like. I can only tell you from Esteban’s comments.
“But yeah, just on pure lap time we’re not that strong.”
Vital F1 wet race experience in the bag for Ollie Bearman ahead of the Australian GP
At the 2024 F1 São Paulo Grand Prix, Ollie Bearman got a full race distance in under wet conditions in the Haas, although he had some very hairy moments over the 71-lap contest.
The Brit is grateful for that experience ahead of what is likely to be a wet race at Albert Park in Melbourne.
“Yeah, I’m glad to have done the laps in the rain in Brazil.
“Like I said, wet races are rare, but it looks like half of my F1 career will be in the wet so far.
“But no, it will certainly be an interesting race tomorrow and we’ll look to have a good one.
“It’s tough [with the white lines].
“White lines, very smooth circuit surface, so it will certainly be difficult. I drove here in the wet in F2, very low grip, very tough.
“And I think it won’t dry that fast and stuff like that, so it will be interesting. A big challenge for us tomorrow.”
A chance for Ollie Bearman and Haas to fight in F1 Australian GP
With Haas struggling for pace in the dry, a chaotic wet race could open up opportunities in the F1 Australian GP for Bearman and Ocon.
“Exactly.
“I think in the case of a dry race, we don’t look to be in the fight at the moment for the points. Anything can happen on the other hand in the wet, so that’s good.”
Albert Park F1 track has exposed the limitations of the Haas VF-25, says Esteban Ocon
While Ollie Bearman has had a shocking weekend so far, Esteban Ocon has been having a clean one at the F1 Australian GP.
Unfortunately for the Frenchman and Haas, the pace has been extremely disappointed and not what they expected after Bahrain testing a couple of weeks ago.
Ocon was almost 0.6s off Nico Hülkenberg as he finished P19. While Liam Lawson was just ahead, the lap from the Red Bull driver was not representative.
The 2021 Hungarian GP winner explained procedural issues added to their messy weekend, although he took some comfort from their improvements from practice.
It’s the second straight season Esteban Ocon has started in the slowest car.
“Yeah, it’s been a difficult weekend so far for sure. A bit of a surprise compared to where we thought we would be after Bahrain test.
“Clearly this track has shown the weakness of the car today, and we need to keep working on them. I think we’ve done some good steps throughout sessions, going in the right direction.
“I think we started further away than where we ended up the weekend in terms of pace compared to the leaders.
“But yes, there is for sure a lot more that we need to be doing to be competitive and we are aware of it.
“We just need a clean weekend, a clean session. The last run wasn’t so clean unfortunately. We got some issues with procedures as well.
“Realistically it was only one place that was going to be better.
“More for us to come hopefully in the next rounds.”
As for what the issues with the VF-25 are, Ocon was keeping his cards very close to his chest in the print media area.
“I think we will keep that for ourselves.”
Wet weather hopes
Ahead of Haas F1 debut, Esteban Ocon could still get some opportunities for points at the F1 Australian GP on Sunday afternoon if the rain arrives.
In the last wet race, he finished a superb P2 at the São Paulo Grand Prix driving for Alpine, even leading some laps along the way.
“Yeah, for sure. It’s not over the weekend. There is some rain coming up tomorrow.
“We could shake things up and we are going to try and get all the opportunities we can.
“But at the moment we are not quick enough to be hoping for points.”
