Ayao Komatsu was impressed by Oliver Bearman’s adaptation to his first full weekend at Haas F1. The Briton found himself in a different environment to the FP1s he was used to. But his boss saw a driver who was capable of not making mistakes, or bouncing back after making them.
“Most of it was reaffirmation of the kinds of things we expected, but there was a lot of confirmation.” Komatsu explains to The Race. “Now that it was all weekend, the mindset was totally different.”
“The target for each session is totally different. How was he going to deal with that? He did things almost perfectly, except for FP3, but then he showed how he could bounce back quickly from that mistake.”
“So there’s a lot of new information, but to be honest, from what I’ve seen before, this is what I expected from him. But when I say this is what I expected from him, I’m not taking anything away from him, because our expectations are very high.”
The fact that Bearman managed to get ahead of Nico Hülkenberg was the most impressive parameter for Komatsu: “Nico wasn’t any quicker than Ollie when he went on the soft tyres, that’s how quick he was.”
“And on his run with the new tyres, before he made a mistake, he was half a second ahead. Half a second! It’s probably Nico’s weakest track. But to be able to do that, to go into the weekend with a minimum of preparation, it’s incredible.”
In EL3, Bearman had a minor accident, and Komatsu was able to see how the young driver was able to bounce back: “It was the first time I saw how he was going to react to that setback, which he did perfectly. Even between Q1 and Q2 he was very calm. He got through it, then he focused.”
“Q2 was impressive. And towards the end of the race, with an accident and the yellow flag, he was very attentive. As soon as the flag turned green, he went for it. Nico didn’t. That shows he’s very calm and has a great ability to absorb information and assimilate it.”
“It’s huge. It’s what we’ve seen in normal circumstances. But when he has a setback, when he’s in a difficult situation, like in qualifying, like towards the end of the race, it shows that he can do it in a high-pressure environment. It’s great.”
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