RacingHaas is ahead of Red Bull after three rounds, and a 20-year-old rookie is carrying most of the load. Oliver Bearman has scored 17 of the team’s 18 points to put Haas fourth in the 2026 Constructors’ standings. He took P7 in Australia, qualified P5 in China, then walked away from a high-speed crash at Suzuka Circuit with only a knee contusion. The team expects him back for Miami.
Team principal Ayao Komatsu is not dressing it up. He says Haas will not try to sit on P4. Under the cost cap, the big teams still have more tools and depth to speed up development. Haas is taking a different line under the new power unit rules. Keep the basics tight, stick to the process, and make hard choices about where to spend time and money. Komatsu even admitted he would have laughed if told before the season that Haas would be fourth after three races.
The operation remains lean. Haas will not have its own full in-house simulator until mid-year, which puts more of the workload on the track and on a car that needs to behave in a wide range of conditions. So far it has. Across three very different circuits and weather patterns, the team found a stable baseline and reacted well inside weekends. That has built a small cushion on the usual midfield traffic and, for now, even on Red Bull in the points.
Bearman’s start is the backbone of it. He sits P7 in the Drivers’ standings and has been clean and quick, apart from the Suzuka crash that ended his race. Medical checks showed only a contusion, and Haas expects him to race in Miami. His form underlines the upside, and the risk, of relying so much on one driver’s returns this early in a long season.
Now the development race bites. Haas expects swings by track as the new regulations settle and rival upgrades hit. Alpine, Audi and the Racing Bulls are the reference threats in the next phase, and the gap can move fast if one package clicks. The plan from Kannapolis is to keep squeezing everything out of what they have and spend only where it moves lap time. That includes close collaboration with Ferrari, which Haas says has been open on energy deployment strategies with the new power units. The aim is simple. Hold the baseline that works, choose the right upgrades, and keep scoring while the giants spool up. If that holds through Miami and the early summer, fourth after three races could turn into something that lasts longer than a hot start.