Haas’ Esteban Ocon and Ayao Komatsu highlight the power unit management to be key in F1 2026, as they along with Oliver Bearman try to predict early order.
After not doing any simulator run of the 2026 F1 car purposely during the course of 2025, both Haas drivers Ocon and Bearman got to drive the new generation of cars before Christmas. They got first-hand feel of the tricky new machines, which they have to learn and adapt to.
Ocon definitely felt the differences and feels he will have to unlearn things to learn the new way of driving. Both the Frenchman and team boss Komatsu highlighted about managing the power unit. They reckon that the management of it will be the key to tap the 2026 F1 regulations.
Ocon and Bearman have to embrace the new change. The Frenchman has experience of the shift from V8 to V6 plus the change from 2021 to 2022 to fall back, but the Brit is all new to regulation changes. Having learnt a lot in the first year, he knows he will have adapt and adjust to another new.
There are no set early expectations for any of them. Ocon and Bearman feel that it will take 4-5 races to identify the situation and only then things will start to look in some order. But they are excited to head into the new season to understand the nuances of it and get on top of it before their rivals.
Komatsu is purposely not setting any targets, considering that he knows that there is a lot to learn. He wants to internal targets rather than looking at the pecking order. He feels the power unit performance will also dictate things and that results in the first few races will not be same by the end of it.
Driving 2026 cars in sim, PU management –
Ocon: “It’s a very particular way of driving the car. There’s going to be a lot more management on the engine side and on the hybrid side. The car itself, you know, felt pretty good. The balance was decent, although of course it was our first taste in the simulator, so we need to see how it is in reality, but the level of grip was good. Clearly, the biggest change is from the engine side, and that’s going to be the key for us to be prepared. It’s an exciting challenge, and it’s a different way of driving compared to before. I think we can forget everything that we’ve learned since go-karts on how to go fast, but it will be interesting to learn a new driving style and hopefully find speed with it.”
Bearman: “I feel these changes are the biggest in the history of Formula 1, so with that is a huge deal of excitement for me. I’m heading into a regulation change for the first time in my life, really. Last year was a big step for me, but I think even from the beginning, we knew that if we put the car in the right window, we were still going to be able to fight for points, and we had an idea of the competitiveness of the car. That lack of knowledge heading into 2026 is good and bad, as on one side I feel like we can really have an impact straight away, but also it’s horrible not knowing. I would like to skip forward six months to see where we are, but I’m going to be giving it everything to make sure that where we are is as high up as possible.”
Komatsu: “It’s early days, but we held a simulator session before Christmas, and we’re conducting another, more in-depth one this week. What the question will be for everyone is what’s possible for drivers to manage around a single lap and for a racing scenario over multiple laps, how precisely can you control various things – so that’s going to be a lot of what we’re doing in Barcelona. We’re definitely in the homework phase of prepping all these scenarios – and there are so many permutations – and that will be included in the sim sessions.”
Embracing new regs –
Ocon: “This is definitely the biggest rule change I’ve ever faced. The first time I drove a Formula 1 car was in the V8 era, then we went to a hybrid system, where I drove one day in Valencia back then and went to Abu Dhabi for FP1. It was probably a similar change to what we’ll face now, but as I said, we need to forget everything that has happened before. We need to learn everything new again, so I think the experience helps to adapt quickly, but we need to adapt everything. All of our senses, how we feel, we’ll need to think a lot more while driving about what to do, to go quicker. It’s exciting, and it’s going to be interesting.”
Early expectations, 2026 –
Ocon: “I’d say by the third or fourth race we’ll have some indication, but it won’t be the final pecking order because there’s going to be a lot of development, especially in this first year. It’s definitely worth taking all the points you can as early as you can, but even if we’re not exactly where we want to be, there are still things to grab in the middle of the season where lots of teams will be bringing updates. I think right now, we need to focus race to race and get the maximum amount of the car, do good things straight away from Australia, and then we will see how things pan out later.
“I’m excited about this year. This team is really growing, and this team is learning a lot. Since I arrived, there have been a lot of great things that have happened. We’re growing the team and welcoming more partners, and it’s very serious how we’re going racing into this year. I really hope, and I trust that this team will give us a great tool to be fighting towards the front, and towards the points. And if that’s the case, I think for sure we will be dangerous.”
Bearman: “It’s impossible to gauge where we’re going to be right now. Everything I’m seeing from the team is positive, but we don’t know how we stack up, and we won’t know until qualifying in Australia. Even then, I feel like in the first few races reliability is going to be playing a big factor. There are going to be teams and people making mistakes with these new regulations. It’s going to be tough to establish a true pecking order. I’m most excited to return to all of these circuits, having experienced a race weekend already. I now understand how a track evolves through the weekend, how the tires perform, and what changes may have tripped me up last year.
“More often than not, last year, I was going to new circuits where my competition had been plenty of times. Of course, I’m now going to circuits that I’ve only driven at once, and where my competition has driven 10 or 11 times, but I feel like even just having one race weekend’s worth of experience at a circuit, and the knowledge base that I’ve built up from a full season of F1 is going to put me in a much better place.”
Komatsu: “Firstly, before we go racing, and even testing, we need to get on top of energy management, that’s the huge one. I don’t know if we all understand the full extent of the challenge because we don’t know what we don’t know. Then with aero development, we’re reasonably happy with what we’ve done so far, but as with all new regulations, the question will be, is the target we’ve set good enough? When we get testing, I’m sure we’re going to see different concepts, and if we’ve missed something, we need to get on it very quickly. For the first few races, rather than setting a sporting target, it’s more a target for us. First and foremost, get on top of PU management, then aerodynamic development. If we have to change direction or look at different concepts, again, we’ve got to do that promptly.
“To be able to implement certain things quickly, you’ve got to work as a team and have clarity on communication. These are things we’ve been doing the last couple of years, and that’s going to be tested even more, but I feel like we’re prepared. There’s going to be huge variation between teams because of two elements. First is the PU, with the teams using the same provider presumably bunched up, so Mercedes providing four teams, Ferrari providing three, Red Bull two, Audi and Honda providing one. Then on the aerodynamic side, it’s completely open, and development will happen fast. A pecking order may get established in the first four races pretty quickly, but I think it’s going to be a very dynamic season. What you see in race one and race two, I expect will be totally different when we come to the final races of the year.”
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