The 2026 Miami GP was not the ideal race weekend for Haas F1 Team’s driver Esteban Ocon. Overall, the Frenchman completed 132 laps over the course of three days without a single point to his name. In the standings he sits with one point, which he secured at the Japanese Grand Prix, in 16th.
Ocon on Pierre Gasly’s crash at the Miami GP
On Sunday at Miami International Autodrome, contact turned the world to slow-motion. Five laps into the race, Racing Bulls Liam Lawson hits Alpine’s Pierre Gasly; a gearbox failure for the Kiwi caused it. The Frenchman then flipped and touched the tyre barrier.
Fortunately, Gasly managed to exit the car safely and was alright. Ocon was right behind them as the accident happened.
“I think first of all glad to see Pierre walking away from that incident. I think it was very scary. I was just behind and I saw him flipping like this and landing on the barrier.
“These are the last big crashes that we can see with the car flipping when we touch the wheels. It’s a bit like go-karts, type of. I’m glad that he’s OK obviously.”
Confidently looking ahead to the 2026 Canadian GP after a point-less weekend
For Haas driver Ocon the Miami GP wasn’t the greatest. He had started the race on P14 and improved one position.
Even though the result was rather frustrating, Ocon noted that the team can learn from this. Having been beaten by Bortoleto who started at the back in his Audi and the Williams duo who were simply faster thanks to updates, there is work ahead.
“But on our side the race wasn’t fantastic. I think we were in good positions in the beginning, decent start, decent first couple of laps. Fortunately we lost a lot after the pit stop, so we need to review exactly what we could have done better there. But I think there was a lot of positives to take away from the weekend, other than just the pace being a little bit worse.
“I think there’s a lot of things that we could have done better this weekend, which we should not do these kind of mistakes later this year. That will help us in terms of performance, understanding, on setup, communication. There’s a lot of things that we’ve improved over the weekend and we identify as problems. I’m quite happy with that work. Now looking forward to see what the new car can do obviously in Montreal.”
Improvement on Sunday
Ocon finished the 2026 F1 Miami GP Sprint Race on P11. However, the pace limitations continued through the Grand Prix part of the weekend.
“I think it was a lot cooler, so that’s the main reason. Now the cars that were faster than us in Sprint qualy were still faster than us now. So I don’t think… I think we improved a little bit, but I think everyone else improved too. So not quite enough for us.”
