Esteban Ocon secured Haas’ best qualifying result of the season at the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, placing ninth on the starting grid and setting the stage for a strong points finish. The French driver managed to outqualify Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda and closed in within 0.07 seconds of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, highlighting significant progress for the American team’s VF-25 chassis. After Oliver Bearman lost his sprint-race eighth place due to a pitlane infringement, Ocon’s performance is vital for Haas to reclaim momentum in the race.
Ocon credited the Haas team for their quick turnaround between the sprint race and qualifying, noting that adjustments made to the car addressed many of the earlier issues encountered during the shorter race on Saturday. He described the sprint as challenging due to various car difficulties, but emphasized the team’s progress in overcoming most of those problems while acknowledging there is still room for improvement.
I think probably the best quali of the year so far for us. We really turned the car around in terms of set-up to try and improve from the issues that we had in the sprint race,
Ocon said.
The sprint race was really a tricky one. We faced a lot of issues with the car and we overcame most of those. I’m still going to say there are some more that we need to overcome.
Despite the progress, Ocon felt he maximized the potential available, qualifying within just 0.620 seconds from Max Verstappen’s pole lap, which underlines the competitive pace Haas achieved in Miami. Reflecting on the weekend’s struggles, he also shared his relief at the improved result, especially after difficult times in Jeddah and earlier practice sessions at Miami.
But honestly, we maximised the potential we have, which definitely feels good. It’s a good relief for everyone because we’ve been through quite a lot of tough times lately in Jeddah. Also in the practice here, it hasn’t been easy,
he added.
But this quali, nothing much more that we could have done.
Ocon also commented on Oliver Bearman’s challenges during qualifying, noting that Haas still faces inconsistency between its two cars, even when they share the same setup. He explained that the team’s window for finding the optimal car configuration remains very narrow, which contributes to performance variations.
I think my engineering team did an awesome job. They can be proud of what we’ve done today,
Ocon remarked.
But this is what we need to work on, our consistency. The window of our car is really, really small. And even though you try and put the cars together in the same set-up, we still see at times big differences across cars.
Looking ahead, Ocon confirmed that Haas has plans to improve reliability and consistency in the upcoming races, aiming to stabilize their performance and capitalize on their qualifying pace.
We need to work on that, have more consistency out of it. But we have some plans coming into the next races,
he concluded.
