Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Oliver Bearman finished 11th for Haas in Miami and said the team could be satisfied with narrowly missing the points because, without upgrades on the VF-26 while midfield rivals moved forward, it was realistically racing to limit the damage.
Bearman ended the Grand Prix just outside the top 10 and behind both Williams cars after a weekend in which Haas increasingly accepted that its package was not quick enough in the conditions. He said the result was tight and admitted he was a little disappointed, but not unhappy given what the team had expected coming in. “It was close. I’m a little disappointed, but we expected the weekend to be difficult because we didn’t have any upgrades,” Bearman said after the race. “We can be proud to finish near the points, even if there were retirements ahead.”
That theme had been building throughout the weekend. After Sprint Qualifying, Bearman described the VF-26 as difficult to trust in Miami’s heat, saying it was “unpredictable at the limit” and that he struggled for balance and confidence in slow corners. On Saturday, after qualifying 13th for the Grand Prix with a best lap of 1:29.567, he said Haas was “really struggling with the rear axle” and called the car “on a knife-edge,” adding that the team had not brought an update while others had made a step.
Ayao Komatsu, Haas team principal, gave the same assessment after Saturday. He said the team had improved the car but was ultimately not fast enough in those conditions, adding: “Many teams brought upgrades, and we didn’t, so we knew we would be up against it.” Bearman made the same point from the cockpit, saying Haas knew it was facing a tough weekend because “we didn’t bring an update compared to everyone else.”
Esteban Ocon’s side of the garage told a similar story. He qualified only 18th for Sprint Qualifying after deployment problems that left him arriving at some corners “50 km/h faster” and others “50 km/h slower,” and said the balance was completely outside the window. Haas improved the car across Saturday and Ocon recovered to 15th on the Grand Prix grid with a 1:29.772, but he still felt the team was short on outright pace.
After the race, Ocon said Haas had “missed a bit of performance” and that even with better choices around the pit stop, points were probably out of reach. “I don’t think it would have been enough to get into the points, but we could have done better,” he said. He went further by saying Haas was likely only good enough for “11th at best,” which matched Bearman’s finishing position.
That is why Miami mattered less for the missed point than for what it revealed about Haas’s place in the midfield. Bearman said Alpine and Williams had both arrived with heavily revised cars, while Haas had not. From that perspective, staying close to the top 10 was damage limitation rather than a missed breakthrough. He said Haas had also been “very unlucky at the start of the race and during the stops,” but still felt the team could be satisfied because it had not maximized the car and yet remained in the fight.
The more important consequence now is what comes next. Bearman said Haas plans to respond in Canada, and Ocon said he is eager to see what the upgraded VF-26 can do in Montreal. “I can’t wait to see in Montreal what the car has in store for us, there will be a big part that will be new, and we’ll see how things develop,” Ocon said.
For Haas, Miami looked like confirmation that its current car is no longer enough against improving midfield rivals. The consolation is that both drivers left believing 11th was close to the ceiling this weekend, and that the bigger fight starts again when the new package arrives in Canada.