Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman exceeded expectations to end up in points in F1 Bahrain GP after starting outside it, as Haas maximised on a track which suited them more.
Given their fundamental issue on high-speed circuits, until a 100% solution is not found, Haas will have to extract as much from the circuits where the car will suit the conditions more. After qualifying in F1 Bahrain GP, they were on the backfoot, starting 15th and 20th, respectively.
But both Haas drivers Ocon and Bearman made headways when the grand prix started. In fact, the Frenchman went for an early stop which allowed him to gain places via undercut and he found himself close to Pierre Gasly on the fringes of Top 5 ahead of the likes of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.
The safety car didn’t particularly help him as he dropped behind them, but he was ahead of the pack led by Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese driver couldn’t penetrate his defences which allowed Ocon to finish a good eighth. He was pleased to deliver after his mistake in qualifying.
“A lot more than qualifying, that’s for sure,” said Ocon to media. “I let the team down in qualifying. I was super sad with my performance. We managed to recover the situation and get to where we should have been. We’ve maximised the result. There was nothing more we could have done with the performance we had.
“We were not sure we could fight, we had a possibly to fight back looking at testing, looking at the FP2 pace but everything has to go right. There are so many fights. I probably took a bit of damage from the start with the stones that I got from Fernando in front of me, there’s a lot that could have gone wrong. But as I said, we have maximised the results.
“Great strategy, we managed to be in the points straight away with our first stop, using the car pace. We were fighting with Pierre. In the end, that’s where we were, we got under pressure with the safety car but Ollie benefited from it, which was mega. Double points finish for the team, we’re fifth in the Constructors’. I think it is mega recovery from, everyone’s happy, we have done this together,” summed up Ocon, as the pace was backed up by teammate Bearman, who climbed 10 places to be 10th.
The safety car helped his cause to jump cars and overtake Jack Doohan to place himself in the Top 10. He was also defending from Andrea Kimi Antonelli, while chasing Tsunoda for ninth. “It was a war,” said Bearman to media. “It was a proper race out there, those last kind of 10-15 laps were reminding me of karting or F2 or F3 – just flat out, giving everything, and seeing where we end up.
“And I was so happy to take home a point. I was trying to overtake Yuki but I didn’t quite have the pace to overtake him. Of course I was on the new soft and he was on a used, so I had a bit of grip advantage but the thing is with every lap more, you know that advantage is dropping, so I couldn’t overtake him and he did a great defence, I felt like I did a great attack but it wasn’t enough.
“And then there was few moments when it was looking like Kimi was going to overtake me but I was doing quali laps in the last 10 laps, especially in Sector 3 to try and keep him behind and I was glad that we had a bit of straightline speed to allow us to hold on. I know what Kimi is like which is good because I know he is not reckless or crazy, lets say.
“I know he’s not going to go for an overtake which is not possible. The only place he was close to overtaking me was Turn 1 every lap, and that’s a tight corner where you like always try something. But I was just about to hold him off which was a really good feeling. I think we showed in the test that we had good race pace. Of course, both cars started out of position.
“But I knew we had good pace and I knew if we started in right position then maybe we should have been challenging for points. But starting 15th and 20th, I thought maybe points is unlikely but then with everything happened, we were able to be right side of things with the safety car and also show a really good pace. I am really proud of the team,” summed up Bearman.
As noted above, Haas jumped to fifth after three races in points. After how Australia panned out, things were looking bleak for the American F1 team, but they managed to turn it around a bit aided by the track layout. This is where the team is at the moment as per Ocon.
The lower end of points places is what Haas has to capture on tracks where the car suits them. “In our good days, that’s where we are, anywhere between eighth and 10th, maybe a bit better at certain times like in China,” said Ocon. “But we need to level up the performance, we need to always be using the car in the right window because in Suzuka we were at the back of the grid.
“So, it is very hard to get the car in that window and we need to make sure that we keep on top of our game and try and fix when we are struggling quite early in the weekend. We have done that super well in Bahrain. We go again in Saudi Arabia with complete reset, not thinking that this where we are going to be because we need to optimise again.”
Here’s how F1 Bahrain GP panned out
