{"id":463244,"date":"2026-02-06T23:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463244\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T23:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:34:10","slug":"ayao-komatsu-admits-haas-expected-more-from-esteban-ocon-in-2025-as-he-anticipates-more-of-a-contribution-during-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463244\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayao Komatsu admits Haas \u2018expected more\u2019 from Esteban Ocon in 2025 as he anticipates \u2018more of a contribution\u2019 during 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ayao Komatsu has admitted that Haas \u201cexpected more\u201d from Esteban Ocon in 2025, with the team boss anticipating that the driver will make \u201cmore [of a] contribution\u201d during the upcoming campaign following talks over the winter.<\/p>\n

Ocon<\/a> joined the American outfit last season off the back of a five-year stint with the Alpine<\/a>\/former Renault squad, having also previously raced for Manor and Force India since his debut in 2016 as well as spending a year as a reserve driver for Mercedes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paired with rookie Ollie Bearman<\/a>, Ocon ended the season behind his team mate in the Drivers\u2019 Championship<\/a> \u2013 and while the pair drew equal in the race day head-to-heads, Bearman outscored Ocon in Qualifying trim on 14 to 10.<\/p>\n

Speaking to a select group of media, including F1.com, Komatsu<\/a> spoke positively about the Frenchman\u2019s approach at the recent Barcelona Shakedown after discussions during the off-season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a very good ongoing talk over the winter, preparing for this pre-season, and then we understand each other,\u201d the Team Principal explained. \u201cHe\u2019s totally clear on what our team is expecting of him, and also I\u2019m totally clear on what he needs from the team, so we cleared everything and set everything up before the Barcelona Shakedown, so I\u2019m really happy with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then the way he approached the Barcelona test, again, absolutely progressed, so we\u2019re working better together as a team. Esteban and Ollie are working well together \u2013 we\u2019ve got to [work] better together to make progress as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some of the testing we did, Esteban and Ollie\u2019s feedback was very, very similar which is really nice in these brand-new regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he understands who we are in terms of size of the team, the resource and how we need to prioritise, but also he understood the way of working a bit better ahead of the Barcelona testing, especially in a team like us, so I\u2019m sure he can make more [of a] contribution this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pushed on whether addressing the size of the team is what he was referring to in \u201cclearing\u201d things with Ocon, Komatsu responded: \u201cNo, it\u2019s not just that. If you look purely at a sporting result, without going into details, for sure nobody is satisfied with Esteban\u2019s sporting result last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a team mate against a rookie \u2013 yes, an amazing rookie, but nonetheless he\u2019s got 10 years of F1 under his belt. He\u2019s a race winner, he\u2019s a podium finisher, so we expected more from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s not totally his fault. It\u2019s 50\/50 \u2013 sometimes it\u2019s that as a team we couldn\u2019t give him the car that he was comfortable [with], especially in Qualifying, and sometimes that was exaggerated much more than others.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at Baku \u2013 he really wasn\u2019t happy with the braking performance and he was miles off in the Qualifying pace. Yes, Baku happened to be one of Ollie\u2019s strongest circuits, but we didn\u2019t expect Esteban to be so far off.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut again, there\u2019s not one reason \u2013 it\u2019s not just the driver, it\u2019s not just the team, and each instance is different. There\u2019s no common underlining factor, but it\u2019s just the process, how we work together to get to the bottom of it so much quicker and then put things in place for the next race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Komatsu is hopeful that this is an area that the whole Haas<\/a> team can improve on going forward, adding: \u201cThat\u2019s the way I feel all of us together \u2013 team and drivers \u2013 didn\u2019t do it very well last year, because I really felt like we should have got on top of that quicker.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at Abu Dhabi \u2013 on Friday he was completely off the pace, but [on Saturday] he was on the pace. Again, it\u2019s not just one big thing \u2013 I would say it\u2019s a few things that really trigger the snowball effect, and we really have got to get on top of those things quicker because Esteban\u2019s potential is clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at Abu Dhabi and what he could do on Saturday and Sunday [where he finished P7], coming off the back of a poor Friday, that\u2019s the talent he has and that\u2019s the capability he has, and we\u2019ve got to harness that. We\u2019ve got to make sure we use that, because we really need two drivers this year \u2013 we needed it last year, but we need more this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ayao Komatsu has admitted that Haas \u201cexpected more\u201d from Esteban Ocon in 2025, with the team boss anticipating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-463244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}