Despite having a clean Friday, the Haas team will be looking for possibilities to extract more from the car this weekend.
While both drivers managed to slightly improve from FP1 to FP2, their pace did not appear to be particularly quick. The Canadian GP is the 200th Grand Prix for the Haas team and they will be hoping to make it a memorable one.
So far, the weekend has proved to be tricky for the team. The rookie driver, Oliver Bearman, finished FP2 in P16, about one hundredth of a second faster than his teammate, Esteban Ocon in P17.
A tough day for Haas
After a difficult Friday, the 20-year old candidly spoke in the media pen about how the day went.
“No, it’s been a tough day. I mean this afternoon was definitely better than this morning, where we struggled actually, quite a lot with the car. We made some changes for this afternoon and it’s brought us in the right direction and brought us closer to the top. You know, gap to the front is less than FP1, but unfortunately, so is everyone else. So yeah, bit of work to do overnight before tomorrow.” Bearman exclaimed.
When asked whether riding the curbs and stability under braking is where they can look for extra performance at this circuit, Bearman confirmed which aspects had been difficult for him, stating:
“Yeah, the curb riding has been difficult and I kind of expected that heading into the weekend. That’s been a bit of a trait of our car. But for the rest, it doesn’t feel bad, so I think it’s just, you know, we’re a bit down on performance. So let’s see what we can do overnight.”
Hopeful for qualifying
Bearman has proven his talent several times, notably last year in Jeddah when he stepped in for Carlos Sainz and managed to score points on debut for Ferrari. After he secured his F1 seat at Haas, the year has been a roller coaster for the team. The Brit secured his first points of the year in China, where he had his best performance of the year thus far.
Additionally, when the rookie was asked if he hoped to be in Q2 on Saturday, he optimistically responded:
“Yeah, I’ll be doing my very best. You know, there’s always a shot at points and often we perform better on Saturday than we do on Friday, so I still have a bit of hope for a decent Saturday.”
Understanding the car after an interesting Friday
Bearman is not the only one new to the team as Esteban Ocon recently made the switch from Alpine to Haas. After staying with the Alpine team for five seasons, the Frenchman is now experiencing his first year with Haas and appears to be settling in well.
Similarly to Bearman, his teammate ,Esteban Ocon, had a rough Friday in Canada. After finishing FP1 in P18 and FP2 in P17, the Frenchman appeared ready to put in the work needed in order to get the most performance out of the car.
When asked about the feeling of the car after the first two practice sessions, Ocon expressed that there was still more to learn.
“Yeah, I mean, it was you know, interesting. I think, first of all to get some laps on the proper conditions, you know, this track last year was very wet the whole weekend and we had only one session where it was dry.
“Now it’s much more, you know, good that we can build on, you know, tune the car session after session and that’s what we’re doing. You know, it’s all about understanding today to get a good qualifying for tomorrow.”
Moving in the right direction
Even though the team endured a challenging day, the Frenchman agreed with his teammate that the team is going in the right direction and are aware of what needs to be done.
“Yeah, we have a clear direction, I think it’s very close out there once again, so you know, we need to be perfect on execution in quali. Get the lap right, no mistake, feeling confident with the car. As I said, this is what we’re working on and if we manage to do that, you know, we should be in the mix.”
With both drivers being positive about the changes waiting to happen between free practice and qualifying, they could be in the mix for Q2. Both the Haas drivers appeared hopeful and ready to do their best for qualifying this evening.
