Haas has been the standout surprise of the early 2026 Formula 1 season, scoring points in each of the first three races. It has been a dream start for the American team, the only midfield outfit to consistently finish in the points alongside Ferrari and Mercedes. Oliver Bearman secured an impressive seventh-place finish in Melbourne and followed it up with a remarkable fifth place in Shanghai, collecting a valuable haul of points and lifting Haas to fourth position in the Constructors’ Championship ahead of the Miami Grand Prix — even placing them ahead of a top team such as Red Bull Racing. So where is this level of performance coming from?
A balanced car with strong aerodynamic load
After already turning heads in the paddock during the closing stages of the 2025 season, Oliver Bearman’s start to 2026 has been even more impressive, with a total of 17 points scored across the opening three races. The young British driver has clearly taken another step forward, particularly in tire management over race distance. However, it is above all the car that stands out compared to other midfield contenders: the VF-26 has demonstrated an excellent chassis and aerodynamic platform, proving highly competitive in both slow and high-speed corners.
The floor and bodywork generate significant aerodynamic downforce, making the car well-balanced and easier to manage on tires, especially with high fuel loads. Bearman has particularly excelled on Sundays rather than Saturdays, which highlights how the car’s behavior and balance improve over longer stints, allowing him to outperform direct rivals over race distance.
One area the team is still working on is understanding the energy recovery system software and optimizing its deployment over a qualifying lap. As seen in Japan, due to an imperfect set-up and some software-related issues, Bearman failed to progress beyond Q1 despite showing promising pace during free practice sessions. Similar situations also occurred in Melbourne and Shanghai: in China, Bearman only qualified tenth, beaten by both Red Bull cars and the Alpine F1 Team of Pierre Gasly, only to finish ahead of him in the race on Sunday.
In Australia, even more surprisingly, he qualified twelfth, missing out on Q3, before once again finishing seventh in the race. These unusual statistics are likely linked to the Ferrari power unit: as is also the case for the Maranello-based team, the engine appears to deliver less horsepower and a less effective energy recovery strategy compared to Mercedes and Red Bull, a limitation that inevitably becomes more visible in qualifying conditions.
The same applies to Haas. Due to this power deficit, combined with minor software inefficiencies, the American team struggles to put together a complete performance on Saturdays and remain ahead of direct rivals such as Alpine and Red Bull. From this perspective, however, the team must focus on maximizing performance from the very first free practice session and identifying the optimal set-up, as team principal Ayao Komatsu explained in Japan:
“The difficulties we had in qualifying in Shanghai were very specific to that circuit. We need to be at our best right from FP1, because if you start the weekend on the back foot it becomes very difficult to recover.”
“Also, I keep saying this: what we have shown so far is that when we start the weekend well, every time we go out on track we learn something, we improve, and that is how you extract the maximum from the car and the drivers.”
An encouraging start to the season
The strong performances delivered across different circuits in the opening rounds of the season are highly encouraging. The VF-26 has a very solid foundation, both mechanically and aerodynamically, providing a strong base on which the team can build throughout the year with future upgrades.
From a power unit perspective, there is currently little the team can do in qualifying trim. However, the objective must be to maximize the available performance on Saturdays and then capitalize on a much more competitive car on Sundays, particularly in high-fuel conditions — which has so far proven to be Haas’s true strength in the 2026 Formula 1 season.
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