MoneyGram Haas F1 Team began Friday at the 2025 Abu Dhabi GP with Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon experiencing sharply contrasting starts to their weekend. While Bearman quickly found confidence and strong pace in both sessions, Ocon struggled from the moment he joined the action in FP2 after sitting out FP1 for the mandatory rookie running completed by Ryō Hirakawa. Their differing trajectories shaped a day that revealed both encouraging potential and significant concerns within the Haas garage.
Bearman finds confidence early
Oliver Bearman began the weekend with an immediate sense of control and assurance. His initial impressions set the tone for a day in which he consistently looked comfortable and firmly in tune with the car.
When asked about his Friday performance, he summed up his opening feeling with: “Yeah, it felt good.”
Bearman elaborated on how the car responded to his inputs from the earliest laps. He explained that despite a disrupted FP1, the underlying performance gave him confidence right away.
“Felt good, we had a good car underneath us already in FP1, I had a great feeling. First run was a bit understeery, but you could feel deep down that the car was wanting to go fast, and even in FP1, I didn’t get to do a lot of the session, we had a small issue on the car, but I did one lap on the medium and we were really competitive, so that’s really carried over to this afternoon.”
Assessing the wider picture
As he assessed the wider picture, Bearman acknowledged the competitiveness of the field. He emphasised that even a small drop in performance could dramatically change the order, making precision and preparation essential for Saturday.
“But I think the key thing is it’s very tight out there, we’re four tenths away, but five tenths puts you outside the top ten, so it’s going to be really important to optimise everything for tomorrow.”
Looking ahead, Bearman reflected on Haas’s usual trend of performing better in the race than in Qualifying. He noted that, given the context of the weekend, it might be necessary to rebalance priorities to extract a stronger one-lap result.
“Yeah, I mean, it has been the case for us that generally we’re a bit stronger in the race than we are in Quali, so I think if we bias ourselves a bit towards Quali, it’s not going to be an issue regardless.”
Ocon struggles for grip and answers
Bearman’s Haas teammate, Esteban Ocon’s FP2 at the 2025 F1 Abu Dhabi GP told an entirely different story. Returning to the car after missing FP1, he expected to build quickly into a rhythm but instead found himself grappling with a machine that felt uncooperative from the outset.
When asked about what had gone wrong for him, he replied, “I’m not too sure to be honest. Yeah, feels like a terrible Friday really. Yeah, don’t know, doesn’t seem to to work at all. I don’t seem to be knowing how to drive at all. Don’t get the car to do one single lap. We are half a second of where we should be pretty much every lap so, yeah, there’s a lot to look through.”
Despite the natural assumption that missing FP1 might have contributed to the challenges, Ocon dismissed that idea. When asked, he firmly responded, “No,” revealing that this issue ran deeper than track time alone, even if he could not pinpoint it exactly.
As he reflected further, Ocon recognised that the problems were not new. He linked them to familiar struggles that had surfaced at earlier rounds, including at the most recent 2025 F1 Qatar GP, suggesting an ongoing limitation in achieving the performance he needed.
“No, it’s similar issues really. We can’t get the car to how I would like it to be over one lap and I just can’t cope with it, basically. Yeah, it’s not working for us can’t drive the car. It’s just nowhere, basically.”
What made the situation even more perplexing was the confirmation that he and Bearman were running nearly identical setups. When asked if his and Bearman’s setups were similar, Ocon replied, “Yeah, very close.”
A dual task ahead as Haas seeks to maximise gains
The opening day in Abu Dhabi placed Haas at the intersection of promise and concern. Bearman’s composure and pace offered the team a clear route toward a competitive weekend, while Ocon’s difficulties underscored ongoing questions about single-lap performance and car behaviour. With the midfield tightly packed and the margins razor-thin, Haas now faces the dual task of maximising Bearman’s momentum while urgently working to unlock the consistency Ocon needs as Qualifying approaches.
