Haas have a mountain to climb this 2025 F1 season, and they will attempt to do so with a brand new lineup of Esteban Ocon and Oliver “Ollie” Bearman. Despite a rocky start to the 2024 season, the team picked up pace near the end, with aggressive defending from Kevin Magnussen and standout performances from Nico Hülkenberg who will race with Sauber in 2025. Haas had one of its best results in recent memory, finishing seventh in the Constructor’s Championship, cementing themselves as a strong midfield contender.
With Magnussen no longer competing in F1, and Hülkenberg at Sauber, it is up to 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix winner Esteban Ocon, fresh off a turbulent departure from Alpine, and rookie Oliver Bearman, who showed promise in his three F1 races in 2024, to continue to job started by their predecessors.
Unfortunately, Haas had a disappointing start to F1 pre-season testing, with both Ocon and Bearman finishing at the bottom of the timesheets. These results, however, may not reflect the team’s true competitive performance, as teams typically follow different testing programs, especially in early sessions. Still, Haas will be aiming for a much stronger showing when racing resumes in Australia.
Bearman “looking forward to testing the limits” in Bahrain
Bearman was the first of the two drivers to take to the track, finally getting proper testing time with the car that will drive in 2025. However, while the young driver, who after completing three F1 races can no longer be classified as a rookie, despite seeing himself as one, was the slowest of the day, he stated that he was content to have had some time in VF-25 without the pressure of a race weekend.
“That’s day one in Bahrain completed and I’m very happy to be back with the team and back in the car. It’s my first time on track in Bahrain and it’s a new beast in Formula 1, so it’s very nice.”
Bearman also stated that Haas had completed the run plan that they had wanted to do, and had obtained expected results that had allowed them to improve their learning about the VF-25 and its characteristics. He added that he was excited to continue to test the limits of the VF-25 over the remaining two days of pre-season testing.
“We got through the entire run plan as we wanted to, and the results were as expected – as we’ve been learning about the car and its characteristics. I’m now looking forward to testing the limits over the next two days.”
“A very solid day” for Haas, says Ocon
Bearman’s teammate, Esteban Ocon, was similarly optimistic, despite finishing below everyone except his teammate. Ocon, who inched out Bearman by two seconds to finish 19th on the timesheet, stated that the first day of F1 preseason testing had been positive. He explained that the team had focused on long stints and had collected a lot of data. Ocon completed 88 laps—the most of any driver—while Bearman completed a similarly impressive 72.
“It was a very solid day, and on both mine and Ollie’s side, there’s been a lot of learning that happened today as it’s the first time we’ve experienced the car in good condition. It’s been a good day as we completed the run program. We’ve focused on longer-run performance – that was clear – and it was very interesting. We’ve got a lot of data gathered, and I go again tomorrow morning.”
