23/05/2025
NEWS STORY
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team drivers Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon sampled the Pirelli P Zero White and Red compounds to start their weekend preparations in FP1 - the opening 60-minute practice session.
Both drivers ran baseline stints on the White hard rubber before swapping onto the Red soft tires to set their fastest respective laps. Bearman ran a 1:13.329 to classify P15 at the checkered, while Ocon posted a 1:13.394 for P16.
Two quick red-flag stops put paid to any consistent running early on in FP2 - held late in the afternoon around the 3.337-kilometer (2.074-mile), 19-turn street circuit. However, as the track continued to evolve, lap times dropped. Having started on the soft rubber, Bearman set his best lap on a set of the mediums - the British rookie clocking a 1:12.259 for P15. Ocon commenced his run plan on the medium tire before switching out onto the softs - a 1:12.541 (P19) the Frenchman's fastest lap. Both VF-25s ended the day on high-fuel outings through to the checkered flag.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team ran a total of 131 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 - 67 by Bearman with 64 from Ocon.
Ollie Bearman: "It's nice to be racing on the streets of Monaco, it always presents a good challenge. My feeling was that we did a good step from FP1 to FP2 with the car and I was happy with the balance. We also tried to short-run the medium and see how its performance was over one lap and it seemed pretty robust. Qualifying is really the goal, but we'll have to see as I did my performance laps on mediums, which was quite different from some of the others. I think there are some good signs from today, so let's look to improve on them tomorrow."
Esteban Ocon: "On Friday it's normal to start pushing the limits, but there were no dramas. I brushed the wall a little bit in Turn 16 once, but I've seen other drivers do a bit more. Unfortunately, not very quick today, so we have a lot of work for tomorrow to figure quite a lot of things out and get some more pace for Saturday."
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "In FP1, our car set-up wasn't optimum, but the good thing about that was both drivers were providing exactly the same feedback about the limitation and how to improve the car. The team worked hard between sessions with the drivers, and in FP2 it was a lot better, so that's the positive. It was tricky with all the red flags, as usual in Monaco, but I think we could see what's available and what we can do. I think we're in the fine-tuning stage now so tomorrow is about finding a clean lap and execution. Our long run pace was okay, but it's all about qualifying here, so we'll focus on that tonight."
Check out our Friday gallery from Monaco here.