Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Oliver Bearman qualified 15th for the Spanish Grand Prix after Haas reversed overnight changes that left him with what he called the worst Formula 1 car he had ever driven in final practice, while team-mate Esteban Ocon was knocked out in Q1 in 17th after a deployment problem.
Bearman’s Saturday looked headed for an early exit after he finished only 17th in FP3 and went into qualifying, by his own admission, “absolutely blind.” The Haas driver then salvaged the session with nine laps in Q1, the joint-most in the field, and a best time of 1:16.571 that put him 11th and into Q2. He followed that with a 1:17.500 on scrubbed softs and then a 1:16.389 on a fresh set, which proved enough only for 15th.
Speaking after qualifying, Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Team driver, said the VF-26 had been nearly undriveable before the team returned it to a workable setup. “This morning, I don't know what we did to the car, but it was the worst car I've ever driven in my life - it was terrible,” he said. “So, we were all going into Q1 absolutely blind. Honestly, I was expecting to be out. If I had the car I had in FP3, I would have probably crashed.”
Bearman said the team had put the car back into a “small knife-edge window,” but the recovery only underlined how narrow that operating range is. He said the car was “so difficult, challenging, unpredictable, and horrible,” adding that Haas needed to understand why such a small change had such a large effect.
On the other side of the garage, Ocon’s qualifying unraveled in Q1. His final lap of 1:17.073 left him 17th, and he said a deployment issue on his second run cost him the chance to build the session properly. “Today was supposed to be much better than what we achieved,” Ocon said. “We had a deployment issue on the second run which put us on the back foot as we were actually fast on the first.”
Team principal Ayao Komatsu said Haas had improved both cars from FP3 to qualifying, but admitted the team had not solved its Saturday execution problems. “We shouldn't be having deployment issues on Saturday, we can have it in FP1 but by the end of FP2 everything should've been sorted,” Komatsu said. On Bearman’s side, he added: “Some of it we understand, some we don't.”
That left Bearman as Haas’ best hope from a difficult qualifying, even if he does not expect 15th on the grid to translate into points on pure pace. He said the team is still losing too much in the corners over one lap, but took encouragement from Friday’s long-run speed after placing seventh on the FP2 averages. “I was quite happy with the long run pace yesterday,” he said, while cautioning that Haas will not “fight for the points on merit.” Still, he added, “we've seen how much chaos can happen,” giving the team at least some reason to believe Sunday can offer more than Saturday did.