Bearman: “Difficult qualifying, but I didn’t expect to fight for the top eight places”

The positive momentum continues Haas in this start of the 2026 season, and especially that of Oliver Bearman. Fresh from 7th place in the first world championship race in Australia, the Briton once again achieved a top ten finish, this time at the Sprint qualification of the Chinese Grand Prix. The 20-year-old will start from tomorrow’s Asian Sprint in ninth positionbehind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and ahead of the other car from Milton Keynes occupied by Isack Hadjar.

A weekend that opened with good signs for Haas, just as confirmed by Bearman in the first words spoken after qualifying, however not easy to deal with: “We showed excellent pace from the first lap of FP1 and we managed to improve it – he declared – it was a difficult sessionthe set-up was a bit precarious and it was complicated to put together a perfect lap, but in the end we did it and I’m happy with ninth place today. They are quite impressed and surprised by the detachment from the leaderswhich appears to have decreased compared to last week. Before this weekend, I didn’t expect to fight for the top eight places because we expected the top four teams to be much further ahead, but in the end that wasn’t the case. It seems that if we do everything right tomorrow, we can score some points.”

Instead, he is chasing the points zone Esteban Oconnever achieved either in Australia or in the opening stages of the Chinese GP, with the 12th place obtained in the Sprint qualification: “We are working hard to bring the car to the desired level. The sensations have improved from FP1 to Sprint Qualifying, but there are still some things we need to analyze to improve it for tomorrow. The potential is there and our understanding of the car is now quite high, so hopefully we can solve the problems and get the most out of it.”