Haas had arrived at Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix off the back of a long-run focused pre-season test that left question marks over its ultimate form.
But, despite Ollie Bearman also bemoaning his lack of low-fuel efforts at the time, team boss Ayao Komatsu pushed back on any suggestion that he or his drivers needed any extra knowledge about the potential of the VF-25 before the start of the campaign.
“Even if I know we are P5 or P8, what am I going to do for Australia?” he said in Bahrain. “There’s nothing going to change. If we had some new parts planned to come for Australia, we’re going to bring them anyway.”
And on Bearman expressing his disappointment at not getting any low fuel runs in, Komatsu added: “We saw him in qualifying last year, and I don't think he did badly. Baku, he outqualified Nico [Hulkenberg]. Interlagos sprint weekend, P1 then qualifying, he outqualified Nico as well…”
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But Komatsu’s confidence about the team’s unique approach to testing appeared to have come back to bite him at Albert Park, as Haas endured a day that fell far below expectations and his two cars ended up bottom of the timesheets in both practice sessions.
On Bearman’s first soft tyre run in FP1, he ran wide at the exit of the fast Turn 9/10 combination and, after skipping across the gravel trap, was left a passenger as his car spun into the barriers, bringing out the red flag.
An unfortunate crash for Ollie Bearman brings out the red flag 😱
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 14, 2025
Bearman is ok and heading back to the garage#F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/GxnoqnLKAk
While the team worked hard to repair the damage, Bearman did not get out in FP2 at all, leaving him with a total of 12 laps for the day.
On the other side of the garage, Esteban Ocon also had a challenging Friday. Struggling to find a good balance, he was 0.551s adrift of the next car in FP1, and almost 0.18s back of Gabriel Bortoleto’s Sauber in FP2.
After the session, Komatsu admitted that the team had not anticipated things being so difficult – as he said there was no obvious explanation for what had happened.
“Today was a pretty difficult day, it wasn’t the performance we were expecting,” he said.
“We have one indication as to why in FP1, but Ollie crashed so we couldn’t completely get to the bottom of why we were uncompetitive. So we need to make another step tonight and then do the best we can tomorrow.”
A logical assumption for Haas’s struggles, especially with Bearman having gone off during a soft tyre run, was that its troubled Friday was a legacy of what it did in testing. Having concentrated on full tanks and long runs in Bahrain, the team had potentially left itself and its drivers with a lack of knowledge of what its car was like when being pushed to the limit.
But, despite what things may have looked like from the outside, that is not a theory that held much ground within the team, as it said the triggers for what happened on Friday were unrelated.
Bearman explained his crash was not the result of him lacking understanding in how the car felt in low fuel. It was a simple matter of pushing too hard when it was not needed.
“It wasn't a case of feeling, honestly,” he said. “The feeling was good. I think just wanting a bit too much too soon.
“It is just kind of my approach isn't the right one for F1. In F2, you go straight to quali after the first practice session; in F1 you have two more [practice sessions]. So there's no need to be straight on the limit.”
Pushed by The Race to suggest that low fuel runs in Bahrain may have helped more with this, Bearman said: “Yeah, maybe...I overdid it slightly. But it's totally on me.”
Ocon did not suffer as troubled a day as Bearman but was under no illusions about the need for Haas to unlock some more speed – even if progress was made over the course of the day.
“We did a really good step from FP1 to FP2,” he said. “Yes it doesn't look shiny on the timing page, that's very true, but the car improved quite well from FP1 to FP2. There are still some things that we know we can find and there is margin for us to improve.”
But despite a day of being a bit on the back foot and surprised at the gap to the cars ahead, Ocon insisted that the lack of performance running in Bahrain was not a factor in what happened in Australia.
“No, no, the decision to do that in high fuel in Bahrain was the correct one,” he said. “This is what they decided to do, and they've done that in '24 as well.
“We've turned the page from Bahrain, now we're in Australia. We're doing the normal run plan like everyone does pretty much. We just need to do a better job than what we did today and keep going.”
Ocon suggests that the best explanation for the day was that Haas was still in the learning phase about how to get the best out of its car.
He reckons that Melbourne Friday was therefore not a true reflection of Haas at its best, and that the troubles had actually delivered some critical answers about what the VF-25 does and doesn't need.
“Today we've probably learned even more than the three days of the test,” he reflected.
