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When Esteban Ocon joined Haas for the 2025 season following his departure from Alpine, expectations were understandably high. The experienced French driver, boasting a decade of Formula 1 experience and multiple race victories to his name, was expected to lead the team's effort. Instead, his inaugural campaign at the American outfit delivered a sobering reality: he was outscored by his rookie teammate Oliver Bearman, finishing the season on 38 points compared to Bearman's 41. More strikingly, the 17-time Grand Prix winner found himself out-qualified by the young Briton 14 to 10 in head-to-head qualifying battles.
The statistics painted an uncomfortable picture, but they were merely symptomatic of deeper issues that plagued Ocon's year at Haas. Team principal Ayao Komatsu pulled no punches when addressing his driver's performance, declaring with candid frustration: "If you purely look at the sporting result, without going to details, for sure nobody's satisfied with Esteban's sporting result last year, right? You know, he's a team-mate against a rookie. Yes, amazing rookie, but nonetheless, he's got 10 years of F1 under his belt. He's a race winner, he's a podium finisher. So we expected more from him."
Importantly, Komatsu stopped short of placing sole blame on Ocon's shoulders. Instead, the Haas principal attributed the underperformance to a 50/50 split between driver and team responsibilities. Throughout the season, Ocon consistently complained about his car's handling characteristics, particularly the braking performance, which he insisted didn't align with his driving style. His struggles at tracks like Baku exemplified this tension—while Bearman thrived at the street circuit, Ocon found himself "miles off" in qualifying pace, a discrepancy Komatsu acknowledged but could not entirely justify.
"Sometimes it's the team, we couldn't give him the car that he was comfortable [with], especially in qualifying," Komatsu explained. "And then some circuits, that's got exaggerated much more than other circuits."
However, the fundamental issue lay in the team's inability to diagnose and resolve these problems swiftly. Komatsu reflected: "There's not one reason—there's not just a driver, there's not just a team, and each instance is different. That's the bit I feel we—all of us together, team and driver—didn't do it very well last year, because I really felt like we should have got on top of that quicker."
The 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix served as the perfect microcosm of Ocon's turbulent season. On Friday, the 28-year-old was so far off the pace—approximately four tenths adrift of Bearman—that he lamented to Canal+: "I felt like a rookie who's never driven an F1 car. There's a lot of instability. I feel like I can't drive anymore, I can't put a lap together anymore. It's been unmanageable for many races."
Yet by Saturday, everything shifted. Ocon outqualified his teammate and duly delivered a seventh-place finish from eighth on the grid on Sunday, showcasing the raw talent that had earned him his Haas contract. This dramatic turnaround illustrated what frustrated Komatsu most: Ocon's undeniable capability existed, but extracting it consistently remained elusive.
"If you look at Abu Dhabi, what he can do on Saturday, Sunday, coming off the back of a very poor Friday, that's the talent he has, that's the capability he has," Komatsu stated. "And then we've got to harness that, we've got to make sure we use that, because we really need two drivers this year."
Despite the disappointing campaign, Komatsu expressed optimism about Ocon's prospects moving into 2026. The team principal highlighted the driver's improved approach during the Barcelona Shakedown test, suggesting that off-season discussions had fostered a better understanding between driver and team. "He understands who we are in terms of size of the team, the resource and how we need to prioritise," Komatsu noted, adding that he anticipated "more [of a] contribution" from Ocon in the upcoming season.
With Ocon and Bearman continuing their partnership at Haas, the question now becomes whether the lessons learned from 2025's disappointment can catalyze genuine improvement—and whether Ocon can recapture the form that made him such an attractive signing in the first place.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.