16/03/2025
NEWS STORY
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team opened the 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship with Esteban Ocon 13th and Ollie Bearman 14th at the Australian Grand Prix, held Sunday at Albert Park, Melbourne.
Ocon started from 19th place on Pirelli Cinturato Green intermediate tires after rain fell during the build-up to the race, while Bearman took the start from the pit lane - also on intermediate rubber - after set-up changes were made to the suspension on his VF-25. Ocon moved up to 15th at the start, with Bearman 17th, before both drivers took on another set of intermediates on lap 4 during a safety car period.
Ocon and Bearman settled into a rhythm until a further safety car period, initially staying out on intermediate tires, before both pitted on lap 40 for P Zero Yellow medium tires as conditions improved. A further shower swept across Albert Park and Ocon and Bearman came in to switch back onto another set of intermediate tires on lap 46 when the race was neutralized by another safety car period. Ocon and Bearman kept it clean through to the checkered flag to register 13th and 14th respectively.
Ollie Bearman: "The aim of today was to get the laps in and collect data. I'm quite happy with my performance, I felt like I executed things well. There are a few things where we lost a bit of time, but when you're not fighting for points it's the time to try things, and it just didn't work this time - now on to China."
Esteban Ocon: "It's really the performance we missed out on this race, if we had a little bit more we would've been in the mix for points. The cars were fighting in front and I was just there, there was no position for me to get inside the top 10, I just couldn't keep up unfortunately. We need to give it a good look - it's not what we've seen, so it's quite unexpected to be where we are this weekend - but I'm sure we'll turn it around."
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "With the car issues we've been having this week, we know it was going to be difficult, but it was really important to finish with both cars. We needed to gather as much data as possible as well as collect driver feedback, and with new team members in engineering, it was a tough race to operate. I'm very happy however that the new engineering team members did a really good job. Obviously on the operational side, there's room for improvement, but I'm happy that we're working together well. With the data and feedback we've got after today, that will help us make decisions on how to improve the VF-25 in the near future."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Albert Park here.