How Haas succeeded in his double entry into the points in Bahrain

While the Japan Grand Prix, a week ago, had played at the time of qualifying, the Bahrain test offered us much more spectacle, especially in terms of strategies, the degradation being much stronger in Sakhir. Consequently, the gate teams had a great opportunity to bring points that weekend.

However, things had not started well for some. Haas had misunderstood his Bahraini meeting with the Esteban Ocon accident in Q2, which prevented the French from qualifying higher than 14th place, and the difficulties of Oliver Bearman who made him fail in the last position on the starting grid.

However, it is fifth in the manufacturers’ ranking that the American team sets their luggage in Djeddah, for the next round of the season. Haas made its second best weekend of 2025 after China, scoring five points in Bahrain. But how did Bearman and Ocon go from last and 14th to 10th and eighth?

Well Haas opted for an aggressive strategy that paid. After a good start which made him win two positions, Ocon stopped very early in the race – from the eighth round – to put on medium tires; This allowed him to do the Undercut on a good number of pilots like Jack Doohan, Yuki Tsunoda and even Max Verstappen, and to go up in the top 10 in the first quarter of the event. The Frenchman even managed to maintain the quadruple world champion behind him when the latter had trouble with his hard tuning.

However, the price of this early judgment had to pay at one time or another. Ocon is therefore returned to the 27th round stand to put on a hard tire train, which he was going to have to keep up to the end of the event. It was at that time that the safety car entered the track, giving its rivals an opportunity to put on new gums and place itself right behind. But the pilot held up to the end, finishing in the top 10 for the second time of the year.

“With Esteban, the problem was that we were on the hard tire”said the team’s boss, Ayao Komatsu, to Motorsport.com. “It was going to be difficult, but we could not go back to the stand under safety car, it was impossible. So we had to manage. A medium tire or a tender tire would have been better at that time, that’s for sure. But we had already made the decision, so it was useless. We were just doing our best.”

On the other side of the garage, Bearman was able to take advantage of his pneumatic advantage at the start to get out of the first turn in 15th position. During the intervention of the Safety Car, the Briton opted for a last aggressive relay in tender tires, during which he made his way between Carlos Sainz and Jack Doohan to finally tear off the point of tenth place.

Komatsu was particularly satisfied with Bearman’s performance, the most consistent rookie after Kimi Antonelli, having scored points for the third consecutive time after a complicated season start in Melbourne. “It’s the Ollie we know”said the Japanese boss. “It is the Ollie that I was waiting for. He is a great guy. It is not only talent, it is also professional conscience and everything else. He is an extraordinary guy to rub shoulders.”

The positive results of the Bahrain Grand Prix have given way to an emotional komatsu, happy to see how his stable was able to straighten the bar after a difficult start to the year. “It is the fruit of teamwork”he added. “Upon the safety car, which we cannot control, we put on the right tires at the right time and we took the best on the others. Everything was great. And for Ollie, starting from the 20th place to score points, it’s amazing. I’m speechless. I always thought we could get there.”

The challenge of Saudi Arabia

This week, F1 joins Saudi Arabia for the last round of this first triplet of the season. The single -seaters will therefore have to find their way in the narrow streets of the Djeddah circuit, a challenge that Komatsu is not afraid to take up:

“DJEDDAH offers the unique challenge of a high -speed urban circuit with little piloting margin”he explained. “We will generally use adjustments for a low drag compared to those used during the circuits that we have visited so far this year, and the way we stabilize the car and will operate the tires in such a low draft configuration will therefore be decisive.”

“It is also the first circuit that we are visiting this year when Ollie has an experience in Formula 1. It is difficult to predict exactly how the VF -25 will behave in Djeddah, but we have pulled the maximum during the last races. We wish to continue on this momentum and finish the first hat -trick of the season – which is very demanding for everyone, both on the circuit and in our factories.”

With Filip Cleeren