Haas F1 team ‘learned more in Bahrain test than all of 2025’

Haas Formula 1 driver Esteban Ocon says the American outfit “learned the amount that we learned in the whole of last year” during the Bahrain pre-season test.

Last week’s Bahrain test was the first official running of the new car regulations, following the Barcelona shakedown at the end of January.

Haas comes into the new rules era off the back of a disappointing 2025 campaign, in which it finished eighth in the constructors’ standings and just shy of 60 points off midfield leader Williams.

But the American team has enjoyed a positive winter so far, completing high mileage in testing and showing promising pace, with Ollie Bearman sixth overall after three days of running at Bahrain.

“Feeling good,” Esteban Ocon said.

“We’re probably the second team with the most laps throughout all of the testing phase.

“We’re really strong on the reliability side.

“We’ve managed to gather a lot of information, a lot of data, and we made a step forward in terms of performance and understanding.”

Ocon praised Haas’ readiness this winter in getting the new car on track for the first tests, while noting that it has learned more over the last week in Bahrain than it did across the 2025 campaign.

“I think in terms of how ready we were, we were one of the first ones to put the car on track,” he added.

“Some teams were not ready. We were. And we brought some updates quite late into last year.

“So, it was very impressive from the team’s side to be able to be that ready and to be able to have the miles early on in the car.

“On that side of things it’s good. Of course, we still need to understand a lot of things.

“There’s a lot of items on the energy management and stuff we need to fix and get better, and that we are learning as we go.

“But overall I think, in three days, we’ve learned the amount that we learned in the whole of last year.”

Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu revealed on Friday that Haas would have more updates to bring for next week’s Bahrain test, with that package likely to be raced in Australia.