26/07/2025
NEWS STORY
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team drivers Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman started Saturday morning at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps with the 15-lap Sprint - the third of six planned Sprint weekends on the 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship schedule - with Ocon finishing fifth and Bearman seventh.
In a largely processional Sprint, both drivers were able to convert their grid positions into race results, managing tire wear after starting the Sprint on used Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires. A total of six points from Ocon and Bearman marked the first time MoneyGram Haas F1 Team has finished in the points at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps since 2018.
Saturday afternoon then saw Ocon and Bearman back in action to qualify for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix - the duo narrowly missing out on participating in the top 10 shootout.
Bearman led Ocon in Q1, securing P5 on the timesheets with a 1:41.617, while Ocon graduated into Q2 courtesy of a 1:41.884, placing him P14. Ocon missed getting into the final stage of qualifying by two hundredths of a second, the Frenchman's lap of 1:41.525 securing P11. Bearman finished the session directly behind his team-mate, the British rookie recording an identical time to his previous session - 1:41.617 - for P12.
Ollie Bearman: "I lost three tenths in Turn 1 as my tires were just not ready. After that, I managed to bring it back and do a very good lap, but it was a big shame as we really had the pace to be in Q3. We added a lot of downforce so hopefully that plays into our hands tomorrow. The Sprint was good, and it was nice to score some points - getting both cars into the points in a Sprint is no mean feat."
Esteban Ocon: "I'm super pleased with the Sprint, six points for the team today is a really good result. We can be satisfied with that as the cars in front were out of reach, so we finished on top of our race, so to speak. It was very close out there in qualifying this afternoon, but there are some positives as we've fixed some issues with the balance of the car. It's still a decent starting position and we're only one place away from a point which is pretty good, so we need to maximize the potential there."
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "The Sprint was very good; we wanted to convert our starting positions of P5 and P7 into results, and we finished exactly there. Six points is an amazing result. For qualifying, we had to consider the weather for tomorrow as there's a high chance it's going to rain. It's tricky to decide direction, so we split listening to driver feedback to cover the widest range as a team. It's frustrating and a bit deflating right now because we have speed. We lost out getting to Q3 by a tiny margin to Albon and he qualified P5, so I feel that's where our potential is. The good thing is, with Ollie's set-up especially, he's very confident and our target is double points again."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Spa here.