06/04/2025
NEWS STORY
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Oliver Bearman 10th, and Esteban Ocon 18th, at the Japanese Grand Prix, held Sunday at the Suzuka International Circuit.
Bearman took the start on Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires from a career-best 10th place, having made Q3 during qualifying, and maintained his position through an orderly opening lap. Bearman managed his tires through the opening stint of the grand prix before coming into the pits on lap 23 for a set of Hard white tires, re-emerging in the thick of the midfield pack. Bearman cycled back through into 10th position, which he retained through to the checkered flag - earning back-to-back points finishes for MoneyGram Haas F1 Team.
Ocon started the race from 18th on the grid on hard tires and ran a longer first stint, pitting on lap 32 for medium tires, adopting the alternative strategy. Ocon was part of an intense four-way battle for position across the closing stages and ultimately came home 18th overall.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team holds sixth position in the Constructors' Championship, on 15 points.
Ollie Bearman: "I think we achieved the maximum today, not quite enough pace to fight the Williams or the VCARB so P10 it is, but I enjoyed my lonely race. Australia was a big shock, and China was an even bigger shock for all of us as to come back with such great pace without changing anything on the car. This weekend we brought a slightly different floor to help the bouncing we've been struggling with and it seems like so far, so good. We have a lot of positives from this weekend so we'll take a point and look forward to Bahrain."
Esteban Ocon: "The aim was to pick up a safety car as we started on the hard compound - we didn't have much to lose trying this strategy - and still managed to get a good start. Sadly, without a safety car it wasn't the best strategy and we knew that, we tried our best - but it is more data, and more information to compare for next race. The important thing is that we transfer the good performance we saw on Ollie's car, so a big well done to him, and to the team for bringing updates after Australia."
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "It was a really good job from everyone to get Ollie finishing P10 with one point. It's only one point but that makes a world of difference and it's a big reward for everyone's effort. We knew this was going to be a huge challenge considering the issue we had in Melbourne, but the new parts we brought to Bahrain worked and the engineering team worked hard across the three days and found a good set-up to get the most out of the tires and qualifying. Today, execution of tire management was very good and communication was good. With Ollie, we maximized everything we could've today. With Esteban starting from P18, it was going to be difficult to overtake in a one-stop race, so we couldn't do much. It's about fine margins, so we need to get to the bottom of why we couldn't get Esteban to perform yesterday, and then look at today's race data to try to get both cars up there in Bahrain."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Suzuka here.