‘Work to do’: Bearman and Ocon reflect as Haas struggles continue in Barcelona
It’s back to the drawing board for Banbury’s TGR Haas F1 Team following a disappointing weekend at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.
After Esteban Ocon’s ninth place in Monaco, Haas were hopeful of achieving a sixth points finish out of the season in Barcelona, only to fall well short.
Ollie Bearman did not finish for a second successive race weekend, forced to retire merely a handful of laps from the checkered flag.
Meanwhile, Ocon came home in a frustrating 13th after making a third pit stop near the end, owing to high tire degradation.
The Frenchman finished two laps down from race winner Lewis Hamilton, who claimed his maiden Ferrari victory.
Ultimately, Haas were let down by both reliability issues and a lack of pace, allowing midfield rivals Racing Bulls and Alpine to skip further ahead in the constructors’ standings.
“It was tough, but we were expecting that,” Bearman reflected in parc ferme.
“I don't think we were anywhere out of position, if anything we were further forward than we were meant to be with some good pace.
“Unfortunately, with a few laps to go I was running in P13, which would've turned into P11 with the two cars ahead retiring, and there was an issue with the car so we had to retire.
“We've got some work to do, it's been a tough weekend and we're going to put our heads together, figure it out and improve for the next race.”
Ocon, who has three of Haas’ 21 points so far this campaign, added: “It was a very difficult race. We didn’t manage to keep the tires alive.
“We had to do three stops because we couldn't hold the rear tires, they were completely finished every time we were doing a stint.
“It was very painful and we tried to hold on, but we had no pace at the end of the race.
“We need to deep dive into the set up, I think we got it wrong this weekend from FP2 to now, so hopefully we can do something better in Austria.”
Haas will be eager to bounce back at the Red Bull Ring on the weekend of June 26-28.