The first Grand Prix of the 2025 Formula 1 season is just hours away, with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
But you should not fault rookie Oliver Bearman for wanting to “move on” to the second race of the season, the Chinese Grand Prix.
Bearman’s first season as a full-time driver on the F1 grid has gotten off to a difficult start, marred by two incidents and a gearbox failure. A hard shunt during the first practice session on Friday not only ended his FP1, but cost him the entire second practice session as the team worked to repair the damage to his VF-25. The Haas driver, unsurprisingly, was out first on the track during Saturday’s third practice session to make up for the lost time, but quickly found the gravel, bringing another practice session for him to an early end.
Then came qualifying which also ended early for him, as an issue with the gearbox on his VF-25 saw him retire before setting a time in Q1.
In the team’s post-qualifying report, Bearman described his weekend as “messy.”
“It’s disappointing to not get a lap on the board but it’s been a messy weekend so far,” said Bearman. “I think tomorrow will be interesting, and then we can move on. As a team we’ve struggled a little bit and of course I haven’t run all weekend, and that’s made it tough for the team to understand as they’ve been only running one car, so I can only apologize to the team.”
Things were not much better on the other side of the garage. While Esteban Ocon was able to complete his run in qualifying, he did not advance out of Q1, and will start in P19 on Sunday, alongside Bearman in the back row.
The veteran driver admitted he was surprised at Haas’ standing in the pecking order to begin the year.
“It’s been difficult, a bit of a surprise to be honest compared to where we looked in testing. Historically, it’s been a difficult track for the team, but we didn’t expect to be this far back,” said Ocon. “We’ve made steps in each session which is encouraging, but we clearly need more. Tomorrow, we’ll go again and try to get the maximum out of the opportunity with rain forecast.”
As noted there is rain in the forecast on Sunday, which could give Haas a chance to salvage something from the weekend. Ocon delivered one of the more memorable results last season in the rain, finishing second in a rain-soaked São Paulo Grand Prix.
Still, Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu noted that the rain might “help,” but if conditions remain dry the pace simply is not there right now.
“Another difficult day with the performance issue we had yesterday,” described Komatsu. “We worked as much as possible to improve the car, which we did, but ultimately it wasn’t good enough.
We’re lacking a lot in high-speed corners, and we didn’t see that coming from Bahrain testing, but this is the reality currently and we need to find a solution as quickly as possible.
“It’s of course going to be helpful if it’s raining because if it’s dry, we simply don’t have pace,” added the Haas boss. “With our understanding of the issue, a wet race may help, but we’ll put everything into it tomorrow – we won’t give up.”
