Haas had a memorable 200th F1 GP start last time out at the Canadian round as Esteban Ocon scored points, and they will be hoping to repeat it at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday. The team’s best result came at the Red Bull Ring in 2018 as Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen finished P4 and P5.
Following a double Q2 elimination in Montreal, Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon started P13 and P14.
The French driver cleared his teammate, Hadjar and Albon as they all ended up on grained mediums. From there he was in an intense battle with Carlos Sainz. While it was never wheel-to-wheel, the gap was always close.
Esteban Ocon on those valuable two points at the F1 Canadian GP
Speaking in the press conference ahead of the F1 Austrian GP weekend, Ocon outlined that Haas did not feel surprised by scoring points as race pace has been their big strength in 2025.
“By surprise, no.
“But we knew that our race pace was going to be better than our quali pace. It’s usually the case.
“So, we did a really good strategy. I was very happy with that.
“Managed to fight with Carlos the whole race as well, which was a good surprise because we thought they were going to be quite a lot quicker than us.
“But yeah, it was very nice for our 200th Grand Prix that we managed to score some points. Took a while because there were a lot of decisions happening after the race in the FIA’s room, but it was all good in the end.
“We sealed the points, which was a good thing.”
Esteban Ocon on Haas maximising their opportunities in the 2025 F1 season
Despite the Ayao Komatsu led team not having the pace they did in the second half of last season, Haas have managed to score points in five out of the ten rounds to date.
The highlight was the P5 for Ocon and P8 for Bearman in Shanghai. China is a big factor as to why Ocon is 9th in the Drivers’ Championship, with Haas lying P6 on the Constructors’ side.
Ocon explained how Haas have been managing to do a fine job of executing their opportunities.
“I think it can go wrong very easily, but so far, definitely when we had the performance, we were sealing the opportunities.
“In such a tight midfield, you need to be taking these points every time—even if it’s one or two—because you never know when someone’s going to have a great weekend and you suddenly recover all your loss in one go.
“So yeah, it can only seem like two points, but I’m not going to say it’s a victory, but it’s almost like a podium for us. It was a pretty strong race, and we need to keep that going, see how the car feels this weekend.
“It’s an interesting track always, and the team has done well historically here. So, we’ll see if our VF-25 will work well here.”
