Between past and present
On the occasion of this year’s Canadian Grand Prix, Haas celebrated its 200th GP in Formula 1, ten seasons after its debut when Romain Grosjean secured a points finish with 6th place at the 2016 Australian GP. Memories that in some way mixed with the satisfaction of last weekend in Montreal, where the team founded by American Gene Haas achieved another top-ten result.
Esteban Ocon’s strategy
Once again, it was another French driver, Esteban Ocon, who brought the birthday gift to the team. After finishing 7th in Monaco, he took 9th place at the circuit named after Gilles Villeneuve. Starting from fourteenth, the former Alpine driver climbed to tenth after a long first stint on Hard tyres, eventually finishing ninth on Mediums following the contact between Piastri and Norris, which forced the latter to retire: “I’m satisfied with all the work the team did this weekend,” he commented. “We maximized our potential because it wasn’t clear before the race that our strategy would be better, but the risk paid off. We managed to run a solid race, get in some good laps in clean air, which was important, so we overtook many cars and then brought the car home. It’s a good reward for the team to get something out of our 200th race and to seize an opportunity that doesn’t come around every day.”
Difficulties with overtaking
Haas also came close to securing a double top-ten finish with Oliver Bearman, who crossed the line in 11th. The British driver followed a different strategy from his teammate, and the late safety car prevented him from fighting for tenth place, denying the team the chance to finish with both cars in the points — something that hasn’t happened since the Bahrain GP this season: “Honestly, we had more pace in the car than it looked like, but with the strategy we got stuck in traffic with other people who started on the hard tyre. In a DRS train it’s really hard to overtake, so we had a lot more pace and once I got into clean air, we had it, but I spent the race stuck. More was possible today, but I’m happy the team scored points in its 200th race.” – the Ferrari junior concluded at the end of the Canadian Grand Prix.
In the Constructors’ Championship, Haas slightly closes the gap to Williams and, more importantly, catches Racing Bulls in 6th place with 28 points, as the Faenza-based team finished the Canadian weekend out of the points with both drivers.
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