Esteban Ocon has responded to the frank assessment of his 2025 Formula 1 campaign by Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu – saying he wasn’t surprised to hear it.
Komatsu said last week that “we expected more” from the grand prix winner in his debut season with the American outfit, claiming “nobody’s satisfied with Esteban’s sporting result” in 2025.
That came after Ocon finished 15th in the championship with 38 points, three points shy of rookie team-mate Oliver Bearman, who also outqualified the veteran (technical issues excluded) 17-11.
Those statistics were no fluke given Ocon’s performances were inconsistent throughout the year, while Bearman’s results consistently ramped up with fourth in Mexico being the highlight.
So Ocon accepted Komatsu’s review, especially because his boss didn’t lay all the blame at his door, adding Haas failed to provide a car that the 29-year-old was comfortable with.
“It was not really a surprise to see Ayao’s comments,” said Ocon during this week’s Bahrain pre-season test for 2026.
“We talked a lot during the winter, and obviously, it’s been an up-and-down season for the whole team. It hasn’t been very straightforward. But, when you read the whole article, you can see that the team has taken responsibility as well – Ayao said it was 50-50.”
Ayao Komatsu, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Lars Baron / LAT Images via Getty Images
Part of the reason for Ocon’s underwhelming campaign was him being unhappy with how the VF-25 behaved, particularly under braking, and he thinks those issues were specific to him.
“I said it many times last year for 12, 13, 14 races, I had this issue of front-locking, this issue of instability,” he added. “This is something that was very different on the other side of the garage.
“It’s not a matter of confidence or just not managing to drive the kind of driving style. It was similar pressure on the brakes, similar condition across the two cars – locking for me, not on the other side.”
The Frenchman therefore thinks his turnaround at the season finale highlighted what he is still capable of. He struggled on Friday, claiming he “felt like a rookie”, before set-up changes resulted in him reaching Q3, outqualifying Bearman, and jumping up a spot to take seventh.
“That was the case until Friday in Abu Dhabi,” said Ocon of his issues. “Whatever we changed in Abu Dhabi, I’m not going to go into detail because that’s down to us inside, but whatever we changed, suddenly the car came back to life.
“I was half a second away from where I should be on Friday, and then on Saturday morning we performed the way we should. Great Q3, finished seventh in the race, which is what we needed for the whole season.
“So, we are working all together, always trying to do the best. There are things that we missed as a team, overall, and that we should have done better. I’m expecting that we all do that this year and we put, obviously, last year behind.”
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