Esteban Ocon had flashbacks of problems he faced in 2025, after finishing out of points in the 2026 F1 Australian GP despite a promising start.
While his Haas teammate Ollie Bearman could extract points in the F1 Australian GP, Ocon had a disappointing end out of points after a promising start. He feels he was up there with the Brit in the opening part of the race, but as it progressed, he started facing issues with oversteer.
This degraded his tyres far quicker, resulting in flashbacks of problems he faced in F1 2025. The Frenchman highlighted that they went into F1 Australian GP race with greater understeering stability, but as the Grand Prix progressed, it went totally opposite for him.
Started well for Esteban Ocon in 2026 F1 Australian GP
It was all the more frustrating because he could make it work in qualifying, but it is far difficult to manage in a race trim.
He started P13 but quickly found himself in the points early on. However, as the race progressed he slowly fell backwards, getting into some intense battles with his fierce rival Pierre Gasly. He dropped to P11 by the flag as tyre degradation troubles hit once more.
“The verdict is a disappointing race on our side really, especially after the getaway that we got,” said Ocon in the print media pen in the 2026 F1 Australian GP after finishing P11. “Off the line we’ve gained a huge amount of places, we were on for a very decent race.
“We boxed under the VSC which was very positive, everything was looking good, until you just saw the lap time that we were delivering, it was just shocking. We were oversteering everywhere, on all the entry phases, we damaged the tyres very early on with that, a lot of degradation, and it’s a flashback to last year, when it was not working well at all.
Two different cars
The 2021 Hungarian GP winner was not impressed and felt he had a totally different package to his British teammate.
“We have two very different cars, myself and Ollie with two very different issues once again, and it starts to be frustrating. It’s really frustrating because you take the car that has understeering stability in that race and I had the opposite [oversteer]. In quali you can make it work, in the race with the degradation you can’t. It’s just common sense.
“We ended out of the points, it was good learning on energy management overall. There are things that we might do differently in the next races, but hopefully that will be a bit more straightforward, and hopefully you don’t have to learn everything again with a new track. There has been a huge amount of information, we need to take it on board and see how it goes,” summed up Ocon on energy management.
Car not good enough to drive
Immediately after the race, he was not certain if something broke on the car, but whatever it was, the car was simply not good enough to drive for him.
“Not too sure to be honest [if something broke],” continued Ocon. “I don’t know if it broke, I don’t know if it was repaired correctly, I don’t know if something else broke, but for sure it was not a good car to drive.”
‘Painful’ racing at 2026 F1 Australian GP
In the larger context of the racing under new F1 2026 regulations, Ocon termed it as ‘painful’. The Frenchman feels as a driver they can’t really do much in the race. They can use the boost button to overtake, but it puts them in a vulnerable position.
It happened with Ocon against Gasly and also Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto. He tried to recover as much, but it was not possible and he lost out. “Painful as well,” said Ocon. “It’s painful because you can’t really do much as drivers. Once you use the boost button, and you have not managed to overtake, or even if you overtake, you are just vulnerable again on the next straight.
Trouble on the recovery side
“The other guy is going to overtake you again, which happened with Pierre three times, happened with Gabi as well, when I was fighting him two times. I just overtook and got overtaken again. It’s very frustrating, and in a way you can’t make the difference in the middle sector to try and recharge further, and try and get a little bit of a gap to not get overtaken again.
“It’s pure straight line speed, how much you recover. We didn’t seem to recover the best, I think. So yeah, a lot to look for,” summed up Ocon, who concurred with few of his rivals, who termed the racing as artificial. He has no solution for it either.
2026 race starts positive
Amid gloom, he found the race starts as a positive point for Haas.
“I’m not sure, I’m not an engineer, so it feels like it’s very artificial in the way you have to drive,” said Ocon. “So if we are a bit more free on everything, it will be good. [As for starts], I didn’t see the others. Yeah, I think that’s been a very strong point of ours, and we can be pretty proud.”
