18/05/2025
NEWS STORY
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Oliver Bearman 17th, while Esteban Ocon was forced to retire at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, held Sunday at Imola.
Bearman took the start from 19th place on Pirelli P Zero White hard tires and maintained position, before cycling through into the top 10 by running a lengthy first stint. Bearman pitted for Yellow mediums under virtual safety car conditions on lap 30 - but an issue in the pit stop forced the rookie to stop again one lap later - taking on a set of hard tires. Bearman emerged in 19th position and moved up to 18th following the retirement of Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, which brought out the safety car. Bearman passed the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto in the final dash to the checkered flag to bring the car home in 17th position.
Ocon started from 18th on medium tires and executed a strong first lap to gain two positions to 16th. Ocon came in at the end of lap one for fresh hard tires, as part of a planned aggressive strategy, but his race unfortunately came to a premature conclusion on lap 29 due to a technical issue.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team maintains sixth position in the Constructors' Championship, on 20 points.
Ollie Bearman: "Honestly it wasn't a bad race at all but unfortunately, I had a problem in my pit stop. We were in a really good position going for a one-stop race so when the VSC came out, we switched onto the medium tire, and I was coming out behind Russell and he was P7, so we were on for a good race, but my wheel wasn't attached properly in the pit stop. The pace was good, the car felt good all weekend. There's been quite a few points we need to brush up on, yesterday was completely out of our hands, but we have a bit of work to do to put things together."
Esteban Ocon: "We had an air consumption issue, so I had to stop the car at the exit of Turn 7. It will be investigated but it wasn't ever going to be a great race to be fair, so plenty for us to review from this weekend and hopefully we can come back stronger in Monaco. I had a really good race start and made a few positions, and we boxed to try something different - and were ahead of quite a few cars at that point - but unfortunately degradation was a lot higher for me, which was unexpected."
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "Obviously it was a very tough day. Starting from P18 and P19, we had to try something different. We did that with Esteban by pitting him on lap one - it nearly worked, but in the end he had a PU issue and he had to retire. On Ollie's side - he had pace. He spent most of his first stint behind the traffic with Colapinto, but as soon as Colapinto pitted, Ollie's pace was really good - so we were going for a one-stop then. We pitted under the virtual safety car, but then we had an issue with the pit stop and that killed his race. But again, after the safety car cleared, Ollie's pace on his last stint was amazing - it was really good. Even after the last safety car, his pace was very strong on an old set of hard tires. The positive is that the car had pace to score points. It's another missed opportunity though, that's the negative. We need to put this right."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Imola here.