From the midfield to the back of the F1 grid: 'We're just not fast'
F1 News
After a particularly strong 2024, Haas F1 hoped to build on that for this year. Currently, the American team seems to have actually taken a step backwards, with a mediocre test in Bahrain and a poor Saturday in Melbourne. Whether things will get better for Haas soon? There are some doubts regarding that.
When it rains, it pours. A fitting way to sum up Oliver Bearman's weekend for now. After a crash in FP1, was unable to drive in FP2 due to the ongoing repairs to his VF-25, beaching his car in the gravel trap outside of Turn 11 and a broken gearbox in qualifying, things are going disastrously for the young Briton for now. Yes, he may take part in Sunday's Grand Prix. But the British youngster does not have too many expectations for a good result, since the Haas doesn't seem to have the speed either.
So while Bearman has to start twentieth and last, Esteban Ocon also failed to put down a decent lap during qualifying. As a result, the last row has been reserved by both of the Haas cars.
Haas falls short of competition
"Just pure performance, really," Bearman responded after qualifying to GPblog and others. "Obviously, I haven't done enough laps to really feel what the car is handling like. I can only tell you from Esteban's comments. But, yeah, just on pure lap time, we're not that strong."
Ocon stated after the session that although Haas is making progress, there is still a long way to go. "There is, for sure a lot more that we need to be doing to be competitive, and we are aware of it," the Frenchman said.
"It's not over, the weekend, there is some rain coming up tomorrow could shake things up and we are going to try and get all the opportunities we can," continued Ocon with hope the weather can make the Sunday's race come their way. But his conclussion was ultimately that Haas is not having the start they hoped for to the 2025 season. "But at the moment we are not quick enough to be fighting for points."
Whether or not he agreed with Bearman's assessment, the Frenchman concluded, "I think we will keep that for ourselves."
This article was written in collaboration with Ludo van Denderen.
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