Haas was undoubtedly one of the biggest surprises of the Barcelona Shakedown, as the American team finished third overall in terms of mileage completed, behind established names such as Mercedes and Ferrari. On the Spanish circuit, Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman completed a total of 387 laps, equivalent to around 1,803 kilometres. This is a clearly positive figure and also highlights the strong reliability of the Ferrari power unit currently installed in the VF-26. The American outfit proved to be extremely well prepared for the major regulatory revolution, successfully completing an ambitious work programme with a mileage total that was far from guaranteed.
Ayao Komatsu, Haas team principal, shared his first impressions following the Barcelona running: “We are constantly learning about the car, because there are these new regulations both in terms of the power unit and the chassis. It is a big change in the way performance is extracted from the car, in the way you remain consistent both in a qualifying-type preparation, let’s say over one lap, and in a long race run. So we learn a lot every time, and everything we learn here puts us in a good position for the next tests in Bahrain. We have a huge amount of data to analyse. Once again, the aerodynamic characteristics are very, very different, and from a power unit point of view there is also a lot to process. So we have a week to digest everything and, in principle, improve heading into Bahrain.”
Esteban Ocon mainly focused on the characteristics of the new cars and on what he experienced behind the wheel of this new generation: “It is obviously very different to drive compared to how it was in 2025. But the good news is that it is still a race car, you know. I expected that we would have to work a lot on the hybrid power and try to get everything right… which is definitely true, because you need to get everything right, otherwise there is absolutely no lap time.”
However, not everything impressed the French driver, who admitted to being particularly unconvinced by the new active aerodynamics system, which he considers too ‘basic’ compared to what could have been expected beforehand and to how the entire system might have been designed: “Overtaking, yes, I played around with it a little. I don’t want to draw conclusions too quickly about how it will be, because obviously it needs to be adjusted and optimised to work perfectly. But so far, it feels difficult to overtake. That is my first thought, but I hope it will become easier. The active aerodynamics, to be honest, disappointed me a little because it is basically just a DRS on the front. We use it all the time, so it is more a question of efficiency rather than something that gives us many more tools to play with and things like that. Of course, we can make small adjustments, but I would have preferred to be able to set the front flap the way we want for every corner before starting to drive. That is what I call active aerodynamics. The Pagani Huayra a few years ago had active aerodynamics at the front and it prepared itself for every corner you were about to face and for what you needed in terms of balance. That is what I call active aerodynamics more than the DRS we have on the front. It is nice, but I think we could use it in a different way. Let’s say I’m not disappointed, but I think we could have used it in a better way.”
Aside from these personal impressions, there is no doubt that Haas performed well in Barcelona, where the main objective for all teams was to focus on reliability. The Bahrain tests will begin tomorrow and will represent another opportunity to become familiar with all these new systems. Attention will also start to shift towards performance, and it will be at that stage that teams will truly understand the quality and competitiveness of the cars developed for this sweeping regulatory change.
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