Esteban Ocon sees good progress and direction from Haas and also his ownself in the first half of the F1 2025 season, but feels they still are 50% down.
After his switch from Alpine to Haas, even though it hasn’t been a drastic steps in the midfield, but still Ocon is in a slightly better position than his former F1 team. The French outfit has struggled to put things together, while the American outfit has managed to do so a bit.
They were faced by issues in the first race itself, but took steps to limit them. And in some ways they have it. The trouble for them is the close midfield situation. It has hurt their chances considering that even a small amount of pace deficit leads to a larger drop in positions.
But overall, Ocon reckons Haas is in the right direction from what he has seen. It hasn’t been top notch smooth, but they have taken good steps to mitigate the issues. “Going in the good direction, I would say,” he said to media. “It hasn’t been smooth the whole time, but we were able to get some weekends where we thought, okay, that was a really strong one.
“There was nothing we could have done better and there was a lot of learning. We started, clearly, as the last car in Australia, and we fought back in a magnificent way. The team was able to react to certain situations in a way that I felt it was a lost cause, and that wasn’t the case. It’s been great to see how much pride the team takes when we do certain results, and I’m really proud of everyone in the way we’ve been able to deliver and improve.
“We set ourselves in a good position now where it’s a tight midfield, and we need to deliver every time we are out there, and that will make the difference at the end of the year,” summed up Ocon, who on the personal side terms it a positive one considering the points he has managed to score, especially from positions where it is difficult to do so at certain times.
He reckons Haas has extracted the maximum in 50% of races, but they have to now pick up on the other half. “On my side, I have scored a lot of points in the first half of the season, looking at we were last in the first race of the season, it is a positive first half, obviously we are not as consistent as we should be or need to be,” said Ocon.
“We are using the maximum out of the car and unfortunately, it wasn’t as straight forward every race we have raced. In 50% it probably worked and rest 50%, we probably need to look at,” summed up Ocon.
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