The 2026 Belgian Grand Prix saw Haas record its fourth consecutive race without scoring a single Formula 1 point, following a start to the season that had shown some promise. However, it has been clear for several races now that the American team has been outdeveloped by most of its rivals, starting with Racing Bulls and Audi, which are now battling it out with Alpine for points.
As such, hopes of a strong showing were not particularly high ahead of the Spa race, especially for Esteban Ocon, who has been plagued by performance issues with his VF-26. But, the fact that the two drivers made contact on the first lap – which resulted in the Frenchman running off the track and both suffering punctures – did not help matters.
Historically, incidents involving Haas drivers are nothing new, but for team boss Ayao Komatsu, it is essential to draw a clear line in the sand straight away – despite the particular circumstances of last week’s incident.
“We just have to make sure it doesn’t happen again”, he told the media, including Motorsport.com, on Thursday in Budapest. “As always, even on a Sunday after the race, I just wanted to hear points of view from both sides, and then I put my points of view, and then we spoke about it, and then days after as well, so it’s all fine.”
When asked for his own view, the Japanese team principal sidestepped the question: “I don’t think I need to share that here. My interest is of course, whatever the reason, it just cannot happen again. Full stop. So, we just got to have a clear rule of engagement.”
“It was not even a real fight”
Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team, Carlos Sainz, Williams, Sergio Perez, Cadillac Racing
Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images
As for Ocon, whose future at Haas appears to be somewhat uncertain given his disappointing results since the start of the season, the incident was down more to an unfortunate combination of circumstances than to a genuine battle for position that went wrong.
“For sure, it was not ideal”, he explained to the press. “It’s not something that we want to happen because we’re already struggling to be exactly on pace to be in the point scoring zone.
“We had a discussion with Ayao, Ollie and myself straight away after the race. A very straightforward conversation. I’m sure we’ll come out stronger out of that as well. Ayao said what he wanted to say to us. It must not happen for sure. It’s not like we’re fighting for the World Championship.
“It was unfortunate really, he went on to explain. It was not even a real fight to be honest. Ollie had his issues with his gear out of the corner. We were three wide because we were trying to avoid him. He was a slow moving object. I was on the inside, Nico [Hulkenberg] was here.
“Ollie was slightly in the back actually. I brake early to let Nico go. I was on the inside there. Last second I saw Ollie coming there and we collided. It’s quite unfortunate really. Of course we don’t want to waste time with that. Hopefully it will not happen again.”
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