Esteban Ocon lamented Haas’ unfortunate luck on his way to a 12th-placed finish at the Miami Grand Prix, with the Frenchman starting the race in the top 10 following his first Q3 appearance of the season.
The Grand Prix featured three Virtual Safety Cars but Ocon unfortunately managed to pit for his one and only stop during full speed race conditions. That is how he lost out to Isack Hadjar, while Lewis Hamilton got past Ocon on merit after the duo had an entertaining battle early on in the race.
“I think it was a solid race on our side, but we unfortunately lacked a bit of pace to be fighting with the quicker guys in front,” Ocon explained after the race in Miami.
«We also didn’t get very lucky, we never pitted under the VSC, many of them happened but we never got to be in that position.
Ocon had an entertaining fight with Hamilton in Miami
“Yeah, a couple of fights but always ending up in the same way so a bit frustrating on that side and I think overall, it has been a strong weekend for the team and we need to keep that going once we get some more performance out of the car.
“It’s obviously great to be fighting with the quicker cars ahead. It shows we did a good job in Qualifying yesterday, as we went a bit backwards today. We’ll keep at it, I think there are some good learnings out of this weekend and some good expectations on the next ones as well so looking forward to it.”
Haas have fallen behind Williams in the Teams’ Standings now – currently 17 points behind – but they still have a comfortable cushion to Aston Martin in the fight for sixth.
But, as well as finding some better pace, the team need to work on reliability after Ollie Bearman was forced to retire midway through the race.
2025 Miami Grand Prix: Bearman out of the race after losing power
“Not sure exactly what happened, I just lost drive, power steering, everything pretty much,” Bearman said. «Unfortunate to not be able to finish today.»
Having started Sunday’s race last on the grid, the chances of making up as many positions as Bearman did in the Sprint were limited by the race being run in dry conditions. And all of that made it two races in a row where Haas have failed to score after a run of three weekends finishing with at least one car in the top 10.
Imola is their next chance to recover back into the points, with the F1 circus heading to Europe for a triple-header of races in Italy, Monaco and Spain after a weekend off.
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