Form and luck swings back and forth among F1’s closely-matched midfield teams, as we saw with Sauber’s remarkable fifth place in Spain.
Just the previous weekend Esteban Ocon had secured a solid seventh for Haas in Monaco, but either side of that it’s been a difficult run for the US-owned outfit.
After a double score in Bahrain the team didn’t better a 12th place in the three races prior to Monaco, and then in Barcelona Ocon and Oliver Bearman finished 16th and 17th.
Ocon wasn’t helped in Spain by being one of the few drivers not to pit for fresh tyres under the late safety car, while Bearman had a 10-second penalty as a result of his fraught fight with Liam Lawson.
Bearman hasn’t had a lot of luck lately, and his progress was hampered by missing his final Q1 lap when the clock ran down in Imola, and by a 10-place grid penalty for a red flag offence in Monaco. In Spain he at least made Q2, but in the end he started 15th as a late set-up change didn’t really pay off.
Recent upgrades to at least seem to have improved the VF-25, which had had a weakness in faster corners.
“We will look at these three weeks, take the positives and draw some conclusion out of these three,” said Ocon when I asked him about his Barcelona race.
“I think there’s a clear pattern, which is quite positive for some track, a bit more difficult on others. But we’ll take the week to analyse and come back stronger in Canada.”
He added: “I think the good points are the strengths we have in some of the tracks which are a bit more slow-speed corners and we struggle a bit little bit more on this kind of track, with longer corners, fast, although we did improve, I think we still lack a little bit.
“Our race pace was definitely better than our quali pace, which is a bit sad, because I think there was a bit more to play today for both of us. Big thanks to the team for keeping on pushing for these three weeks.
“And now we are going to be able to breathe a little bit, analyse what went on, and come back stronger in a race where hopefully we should perform well.”
Ocon remains hopeful that the team can make a step in Canada.
“I think we should be good in in corners in Montreal, we need to see about straight line speed obviously, this is what we need to be sure of. Plenty of work and understanding to go for us.
“But I’m positive that we should be able to come back in a decent level of performance.”
Meanwhile team principal Ayao Komatsu acknowledges that there’s work to be done in all areas.
“I feel like we really need to hit the ground running better, to give a consistent platform for the drivers to run every single run,” he said in Spain. “I don’t like to separate, but for sure we are still learning how to get the best out of Esteban.
“And when he’s in a good spot, in terms of car set-up, mentally and everything, you’ve seen what he can deliver. Shanghai was a very, very good race. Bahrain was amazing. And Monaco, what he delivered in qualifying, was excellent. So we know we can do it.”
Adam Cooper F1 