Haas building on record start as Oliver Bearman leads early 2026 charge
Haas has enjoyed its joint-strongest ever start to a Formula 1 season.
Haas entered the April break enjoying one of the best starts in its history, matching its 2016 debut tally with 18 points after three races.
An impressive top-five finish for Oliver Bearman in China played no small part in this, with the team having been on a consistent trajectory over the past few years.
Oliver Bearman leads the way in strong Haas 2026 start
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Haas may have finished the 2025 campaign eighth in the standings, but a P4 finish for Bearman in Mexico City last year represented the team’s joint-best ever in a Grand Prix. Now, with support from Toyota and a steady expansion of its staff and wider infrastructure, the team looks an eventual podium finisher in waiting.
Bearman in particular has planted himself as ‘best of the rest’ outside of Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari early this year, with the Ferrari junior having scored 17 of the 18 points so far.
The VF-26 has proven itself a solid early base for its drivers to work with, as Esteban Ocon also got off the mark for the year at Suzuka last time out.
A hat-tip should be given to team principal, Ayao Komatsu, for not just continuing the unique nature of partnering with several high-profile manufacturers to create its car, but for maintaining that delicate balancing act with the arrival of Toyota as title partner through its Gazoo Racing division.
Haas receives engineering support from Dallara, customer parts from Ferrari – with the team having its own base at Maranello, along with access to Ferrari’s simulator and occasionally making use of its in-house Fiorano test track – and it can now count on technical expertise from Toyota, with the team having run its first-ever Testing of a Previous Car [TPC] days last season.
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Explaining the difference in how the manufacturers coexist, Komatsu told PlanetF1.com and other media in December: “Like I said from day one, our existence, really, the foundation is Ferrari. Without Ferrari collaboration, we’re not going to be here.
“To be very clear, even the very first time last year, one of the first question Akio [Toyoda, Toyota Motor Corporation chairman] has asked me is, ‘Is Ferrari going to be okay with this?’ So it’s not like Toyota is trying to step into where Ferrari is working with us.
“There are certain areas, obviously, in the regulation that Ferrari can help us, [and] certain areas in the regulation that Ferrari cannot help us because they are our competitor, and those are the areas where we are working together with Toyota and TGR, so there’s no issue in that regard at all.
“I’ve been completely transparent with Ferrari as well. And again, Akio-san, for somebody like the chairman of TMC, first thing he says is, ‘I don’t want to create any mess with Ferrari.’ So, he’s a great guy.”
That infrastructure being put in place points to a wider growth within the team that appears to be bearing fruit on track, too.
From the first private shakedown test in Barcelona, Bearman spoke of how impressive it was for the team to clock almost three race distances’ worth of laps, alongside a 200km test at Fiorano, to highlight the reliability of the VF-26 from the off – not a given with this generation of car at the moment.
Haas has been steady in qualifying so far this year, with just one Q3 appearance between its drivers from Bearman in China and an average grid position of 13th, the VF-26’s ability in race trim has been markedly improved.
Utilising fast-starting Ferrari power has helped provide better track position early on, with the reported smaller turbo in the Scuderia’s PU giving the car the ability to get away from the line more effectively than its rivals.
From there, the young Briton in particular impressed in Australia and China, before his high-speed collision in Japan, taking avoiding action from the slower Franco Colapinto in front at Suzuka by taking to the grass, and hitting the barriers with a 50G impact.
On Ocon’s side, however, he broke into the points at Suzuka but trailed Bearman in the first two rounds.
The Frenchman spoke about the challenges the 2026 regulations would bring before they came into force, saying in Qatar last year: “It’s like if you jump from an F1 car to a rally car next year, pretty much. It’s that different.”
Komatsu was frank in saying, too, that Ocon’s first season with Haas had perhaps not been as strong as anticipated, placing 50-50 responsibility between team and driver for the 2025 campaign having not quite gone to plan from his side.
The former Alpine driver admitted “it was not really a surprise” to see that assessment from his team principal, and though the cars provide a completely different driving experience in 2026, Ocon believes the VF-26 will have the ability to perform well.
“The base of the car definitely has huge potential in terms of balance,” he said in China.
“When we put everything together it’s definitely a much better step forward than where it was last year in Melbourne. Of course, we’ve had different issues last year and we managed to overcome those when we came to China, but now we don’t have to panic and do a reset on most of these things.
“We have the base that we can work on, and if we do a good job throughout the weekend we can definitely be fighting for something decent.”
As for how high that ceiling is, Komatsu has spoken highly about the team’s partnership with Toyota, as well as offering hope that Haas will have its own in-house simulator in the next six months which, in turn, will have positive effects beyond simply having such equipment.
“If we can do this [performance] even without having a simulator at home, once we have it at home, there’s so much potential we can go through,” he said in Suzuka.
“We can have a better preparation, and also the requirement for travelling for our staff will reduce as well. But of course, we’ve got to deal with, let’s say, this parallel process. Of course, look at our current constraints [and ask] how can we improve that foundation?
“But again, this is what we’ve got. How can we make best use of it? So we’ve got to do that entirely, but I feel that we are at least doing that process reasonably well.”
For this season, Haas will be likely to have to make do with its current resources for some time when it comes to the development race, but signs are pointing forward in the seasons to come.
In a year that has started about as well as the team could reasonably expected, the next question will be how well it can retain that trajectory with others, such as Red Bull, looking to play catch-up on track.
F1 2026 season rating to date: 8
Additional reporting by Mat Coch and Thomas Maher
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