Haas F1 driver Esteban Ocon faced a difficult task in last weekend’s Australian GP. The Frenchmen was way off the pace in qualifying and had to start the rain-infected race from last place on the grid. He was over half a second off Nico Hülkenberg ahead. Liam Lawson split them but did not do a properly representative time.
At the end of the day he crossed the line second-to-last, with only team mate Ollie Bearman behind him. Haas trailed way off the back in the Grand Prix.
“It’s been a difficult race,” Ocon said. “[A] difficult race in terms of pace and how the car was feeling. Yeah, pretty difficult to drive.
“So we need to figure out exactly why that is. I don’t think it should be that difficult. It didn’t look as difficult in Bahrain.
“So we will hopefully find some answers before next week, try again and give it a better go. But for sure, we were lacking some pace today and we need to put it all together and understand.”
The Haas duo took a creative approach regarding the tyre strategy, as both stopped after they were let by in the final lap of the safety car period following Fernando Alonso’s crash. Ocon felt it didn’t really matter in terms of the final result.
After initially staying on inters unlike the rest of the grid, they ultimately switched to dry tyres as well.
“To be honest, it was not much of a loss. I think we did, in terms of strategy, probably the best we could.
“There’s a few things we can clean, but there wasn’t much left on the table today, which is a bit frustrating for sure. But we will give it a hard go next time, understand. We are going to work hard between the two races and go again in China.”
Ocon pleased with Bearman bounce-back
Ocon refused to write off the season already, despite the team having to switch the focus to 2026 eventually.
Updates throughout last season worked for Haas and they became regular points scorers in the second half of the campaign. The former Alpine driver is hopeful of a repeat in 2025.
“No, I think we should not just write off because of one race,” the one-time Grand Prix winner said. “It’s a long season. The team last year here, there was one car out of Q1 and one car in Q2, but overall it was very poor in terms of performance.
“Of course, this year is worse, but our car has some strengths that we saw in Bahrain and in some other places that we drove as well. So, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be better later in the season and I’m sure the team will manage to turn things around.”
For Ocon’s rookie teammate Bearman the Australian GP was more of an extended testing session. The young Briton suffered the entire weekend from the consequences of his practice crash. This prompted the team to change the set-up and make him start the race from the pit lane.
“We started from the pit lane, we obviously changed a few things on his car,” Ocon explained. “So we are going to have, you know, some good data to compare on a few things.
He didn’t forget to compliment his team mate for a decent race which saw most of the (full-time) rookies crash out.
“[It was] a tough one all round for everybody. I think Ollie did a very solid race.
“We were both racing together basically all the way through and no foot wrong on that one. Of course, it’s a difficult one for everyone, but I’m sure we’ll have better days.”
