Haas’s work
During the pre-season tests carried out in Bahrain, the Haas was the most surprising team in terms of reliability and laps completed, finishing in the latter by chance in 2nd place behind reigning champion McLaren. A trend that the US team also maintained in the first two sessions free practice for the Australian Grand Prix.
The progress
With a total of 113 laps completed between Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman (with the Englishman completing just one less than his teammate), the best performances of both drivers materialized during FP2. In the qualifying simulation, Ocon achieved the 10th fastest time just ahead of Bearmanwho commented as follows on Friday in Melbourne: “It was a positive day, in the sense that we learned a lot and discovered many things on a very different track to what we were used to in Bahrain – he declared – there are many other things to focus on and I think we have made progress, which is the goal. Tonight it will be important to consolidate everything and make sure we take a step forward for tomorrow: this is the goal.”
As in FP2, Ocon he achieved the fastest lap at Haas also in the FP1in this case with 11th place (Bearman 14th): “There are a lot of things going on, a lot of details and information to assimilate. It was interesting to try a different track and see how the car behaves. The balance seems good, there are some small details to sort out, but it’s not a problem. We need to optimize the energy delivery because there is a lot to gain, and at the moment it’s not that easy, however, it’s all at stake if we can maximize it with the engineers. So let’s see how it goes tomorrow.”
