Haas gets left behind after strong start

Thanks to a strong start by Oliver Bearman, Haas enters the summer shutdown in seventh place in the constructors’ standings. The team scored 21 points, which leaves it well adrift of Racing Bulls and Alpine, but ahead of Audi and Williams. However, a worrying decline in performance as Formula 1’s development race heats up is taking its score down a notch to a C-.

The good

Haas is still F1’s smallest team by some margin, and is believed to be the only squad not operating at the series’ budget cap. In that regard, quite how it managed to cope with 2026’s seismic regulation changes and avoid many of the pitfalls that other teams have fallen into is nothing short of remarkable, as it pulled off a strong baseline package with its VF-26.

Haas came out of the blocks flying in Melbourne and – in the hands of Bearman – was even more competitive in China, beating Red Bull on pace as Bearman took fifth. Haas amassed 18 points over the first three weekends, which gave it a promising outlook for the rest of the season, perhaps battling with Alpine at the top of the midfield.

Haas’ growing technical partnership with Toyota will also start to pay off soon as it is set to start operating its own simulator for the first time, while also being able to run a test programme to evaluate drivers and chip in with manufacturing capacity.

Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

The bad

But as 2026’s ferocious in-season development race unfolded and teams started rolling out big upgrade packages around the start of the European leg of the season, Haas was seemingly not able to keep pace with the rafts of improvements its direct competitors were making. Racing Bulls’ vast floor upgrade in Canada propelled it ahead, with Audi also improving to knock Haas out of points contention from Barcelona onwards.

The team’s best result over the five most recent rounds was 12th in Silverstone, with its relative lack of resources now starting to get exposed.

Haas also faced a second car problem, as Bearman has been responsible for all of its 21 points so far. On the other side of the garage Esteban Ocon is going through a potentially career threatening slump. But what has made it harder to judge the Frenchman’s performance is the team’s lack of consistency with the build quality of some of its parts, which has particularly affected Ocon’s confidence aboard the VF-26.

What they’re saying

Ayao Komatso, team principal: “The start of the season was pretty impressive. In terms of teamwork, reliability, getting the best out of the car, and actually the potential of the car, that was much more than what I expected, considering we are the smallest team and this is the biggest regulation change we ever experienced.

“But after the April break, in terms of development, we went behind because other people put so much performance on the car. We improved the car, but not enough to keep up with them. It’s not the fault of our guys. They’re doing an amazing job, because if you simply look at the size of our team and the constraints we’ve got, you cannot ask for more. So, it’s more of a question of me trying to give them a better environment.”

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– The Motorsport.com Team