Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu delivered a blunt assessment of his team’s performance at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, declaring the American outfit was not good enough operationally as both drivers failed to score points and the team’s midfield slide continued.
Ollie Bearman retired from the race due to a reliability issue while running in a points-contending position, and Esteban Ocon could only manage 13th after qualifying 17th. The result marked a second consecutive pointless weekend for Haas, who sit seventh in the constructors’ standings and have watched their early-season competitiveness erode since introducing their first major upgrade package.
“This weekend the car wasn’t quick enough and I think operationally we weren’t good enough,” Komatsu said. “If you look at part of the race where Ollie was on the hard tyre, his pace was decent, but from day one this weekend we didn’t operate at the level we should be operating at and that has had a knock-on effect into today. In the race, communication wasn’t good enough. Yes, the car needs to be improved and be faster, but we’re not getting the best out of it. As a team we need to look at ourselves and improve very quickly.”
The qualifying struggles have been particularly alarming. Bearman has made Q3 just once this season and SQ3 once, both at the Chinese Grand Prix. Since then, the British rookie has exited in Q1 twice and Q2 three times, managing only 15th on the grid in Barcelona. Ocon’s situation is even more concerning — the Frenchman has qualified 17th for three consecutive Grands Prix, a slide that coincides directly with the upgrades being fitted to his VF-26.
Ocon pointed to severe rear tyre degradation as a central problem, forcing the team into an unplanned three-stop strategy. “We didn’t manage to keep the tyres alive and make them hold the whole race,” Ocon said. “We had to do three stops because we couldn’t hold the rear tyres, they were completely finished every time we were doing a stint. It was very painful and we tried to hold on, but we had no pace at the end of the race. We need to deep dive into the set-up, I think we got it wrong this weekend from FP2 to now, so hopefully we can do something better in Austria.”
Bearman’s afternoon ended in further frustration when a mechanical issue forced his retirement with just a few laps remaining. “Unfortunately, with a few laps to go I was running in P13, which would’ve turned into P11 with the two cars ahead retiring, and there was an issue with the car, so we had to retire,” Bearman said. It marked his second consecutive DNF after first-lap contact in Monaco.
The weekend was made more painful by the results of direct rivals. Both Alpine and Racing Bulls brought both cars home in the points, tightening the midfield battle around a Haas team that started the season strongly thanks to Bearman’s points haul at the opening two rounds. The team had hoped Barcelona’s traditional circuit layout would help them better understand their upgrade package after the unique demands of Monaco and Montreal, but that hope went unfulfilled.
Haas now head to Austria looking for answers, with Komatsu making clear the issues extend beyond car performance to the team’s operational execution.