Haas had an afternoon to forget at Zandvoort, with both Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon parking up trackside to retire with technical issues.<\/p>\n
Having qualified down the order, neither DNF cost the team a chance of points \u2013 but instead highlighted how many issues the team currently have to work on.<\/p>\n
Bearman<\/a> was the first to park up, at the end of the formation lap following the red flag restart called after Max Verstappen’s crash out of Turn 14<\/a>. That meant he completed just one racing lap in Zandvoort, and having also lost out in SQ1 and Q1, the British driver was left in a despondent mood.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a good start and a good first lap, and then of course the red flag came out. After that, the engine turned off on the formation lap, and because we haven\u2019t had any time with the car yet, we\u2019re not entirely sure what the issue was,\u201d he said afterwards.<\/p>\n \u201cOn my side, I felt a total switch-off, which is a shame. It\u2019s been a really horrible weekend, not the one we wanted to come back to, but we have some updates coming next week, and I really hope they can better our performance.\u201d<\/p>\n Haas<\/a> last upgraded the car back in Canada, but those parts did not have the desired effect and instead the American team has tumbled down the order.<\/p>\n From fighting for points at the start of the season, they have fallen back into the clutches of Williams<\/a> and Aston Martin<\/a>, and seem some way off the pace of the top 10 right now.<\/p>\n Ocon<\/a> at least completed most of the race, gathering data for the team before he too parked up \u2013 his stricken Haas sparking a Virtual Safety Car period that shook up the latter stages of the Grand Prix.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t had any reliability issues this year, this is the first one, and we think it\u2019s related to the PU, but we\u2019ll need to look into it first to properly understand,\u201d the Frenchman said.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth cars had issues, so neither of us finished the race, but it wasn\u2019t going to change the world as we weren\u2019t in point scoring positions anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n This was Ocon\u2019s first DNF of the season, while Bearman has now failed to finish four times. The team find themselves seventh in the standings, but Audi<\/a> in eighth are closing fast having scored in the last four Grands Prix.<\/p>\n Haas face an increasingly tough fight to score points, with Racing Bulls, Alpine, Audi and now Aston Martin all battling hard in the midfield, but upgrades are coming for the next race in Monza.<\/p>\n