After the disappointment, the resurrection follows: After the big World Cup setback in Silverstone, a brilliant sprint qualifying in Spa-Francorchamps has put it and put himself at the top of the Formula 1 midfield.
Esteban Ocon only had to give up the two McLaren as well as Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc and started from fifth place, Oliver Bearman from seventh.
The strong shape had already announced itself in Silverstone when Bearman had driven to eight with a revised car, which he could not take due to a grid penalty.
Haas had remained without points under difficult conditions, but it was certain that it would have been a different story in the dry.
There was evidence in Belgium on Friday. Ocon left his first pursuer Carlos Sainz by two tenths and has a strong starting position for good points in the sprint. “Yes, that was fantastic,” he says. “Really, really nice – and congratulations on the whole team.”
“I think we had two weeks to analyze exactly what went wrong in Silverstone. The car was difficult to drive there, even with the update, which was actually a step in the right direction. But I think we really turned the car today and it felt great.”
Only P16 and P20 in training
In training, Haas seemed to have had big problems before because only positions 16 and 20 were occupied, but the team pushes this on a different program and on traffic, the Ocon braked. For sprint qualifying, the French-up set-up had to be converted enormously-with success.
“It was impressive that he then knocked out a round in SQ1 straight away,” says team boss Ayao Komatsu at Sky. “And then P5 at the end – great performance.”
Surprising: Ocon even drove an absolute best time in the first sector and was two tenths faster than the McLaren, which speaks for a set-up with little downforce. Ocon himself thinks that he hadn’t had such a good feeling in the car “for a long time. “It’s nice to have it on such a route where you need self -confidence.”
Bearman with P7 also strong
Team colleague Oliver Bearman rounded off the strong result with seventh place and is also satisfied: “I’m really happy for everyone – it was a great team performance, both cars in Q3,” he praises. “Esteban did a great job and it’s just a great feeling.”
According to him, Haas helped in training the medium tire that was mandatory in the first two sections. Because the pilots were faced with the choice: either hard and soft to drive and save the medium or drive medium and soft. “And we chose medium,” said Bearman.
“Simply because the difference between hard and medium was so great that the qualification preparation would otherwise have been really difficult. Medium was the better choice,” said the explanation. “But honestly – I already had a good feeling in the car in FT1.”
This was then shown in sprint qualifying. Ocon is pleased that both Haas were able to show such a strong performance: “This is shown by our level – from Ollie and me,” he emphasizes.
“We push each other extremely since the beginning of the season, and we are extremely close together, both in qualification and in the race.”
“There are no points today, but …”
“So far we have used everything optimally. Now it would be nice to get a few larger points,” said the Frenchman. “But for the moment we enjoy the evening and then see where we will be tomorrow.”
Because he also knows: “There are no points at the moment, fifth place does nothing. But it still means a lot,” he emphasizes. “It shows that we make progress that we understand what happens and go in the right direction. I think we deserve this fifth place today.”
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And which place jumps out on Saturday will be shown. At least with the two Mercedes (P13 and P20) and Lewis Hamilton (P18) there are three strong opponents, while the regular competition from Haas lurks right behind them. “I think we can fight,” says Ocon.
“I think we are the fastest car on the straight this weekend – which is a surprise, otherwise we were the slowest. I’m really happy. The team did a great job.”