Inside the secret world of an F1 garage

For a moment, calm descends on the Haas garage. Esteban Ocon has just headed out to begin the first practice session in Qatar.

As he does so, mechanics tune in to the radio for further instruction while others clean up where sticky racing tyres marked the freshly painted floor.

Behind the scenes with Haas in Qatar

For all its pomp and ceremony, the grandeur of a race weekend, the beating heart of F1 is when cars are on track.

That’s perhaps been a little lost in recent years, with increased commercialisation, drama, concerts, and celebrities that garner attention at every event. But strip it all back to its bones, and F1 remains about 20 cars (22 from next season) competing on a Sunday afternoon.

Before then, there is qualifying and before that practice, all of which offer teams critical insight into how the remainder of their weekend will pan out. Some of it is in their control, much of it not.

Typically, drivers and teams have three hours in which to fettle their cars. But on a Sprint weekend, that is compressed to just 60 minutes.

In Qatar, the final Sprint race of the F1 2025 season, PlanetF1.com was invited into the Haas garage for a behind-the-scenes look at how the team operated during the all-important practice session.

And hence, when the session began, there was something of a stampede into pit lane in an effort to both maximise track time and cover off the ever-present threat of red flags.

We’re stationed behind Ocon’s car, staring down the barrel of his exhaust. To our left, the engineering desk, with Laura Mueller stationed at a computer closest to pit lane. Opposite her, hidden behind the vast bank of computer screens, is Ronan O’Hara, working in support of Oliver Bearman, who sits in his car, waiting to roll out.

Immediately in front of us is a small shelf, on which there is a sheet with a myriad of tyre-related information pertinent to the session. Just beyond that stood a stack of tyres, still in their blankets, being prepared for use later on.

As we walked into the garage, we were handed a radio and a headset. What we heard, we were told, was not to be repeated; we were plugged into the conversation as Ocon was hearing it from the car.

When the radio crackled into life, it did so firstly with a radio check as Ocon climbed into the car, before a countdown prior to his release. At the front of the garage, Mueller commanded the team with nothing more than a raised arm, before giving the signal to release her driver. In unison, the team responded, and the Frenchman trundled out.

From there, an almost constant stream of chatter followed, dominated by the relative position of others on track, and especially those around Ocon, rather than a technical assessment of the car and its relative strengths and weaknesses.

That remained the case through the opening minutes, there was precious little technical chat as Ocon remained on track for an initial nine-lap run before returning to the pits; a combination of push and cool laps.

From the garage, we followed along via the timing screens, with the seemingly random radio messages adding detail that served only to confuse without the additional context available to the engineers and, presumably, Ocon himself. To them, it made sense. To others, it was an overwhelming stream of information.

After a few minutes in the garage, Ocon was sent back out. There had been no panic of great sense of urgency, just a well-orchestrated and rehearsed buzz of activity. After another 10 laps, Ocon was back in and the discussion became more detailed. Even on track, feedback from the Frenchman was both more frequent but also significantly more specific.

He referred to entry, exit, and mid-corner tendencies, describing the behaviour at each point in concise detail. Changes were agree, seemingly subtle from the outside, with machines descending onto the once its French pilot had returned to the pits.

From there, he ventured out for what effectively amounted to a qualifying simulation run – just a single timed lap – before returning to the pit lane.

In the silence on Ocon’s radio, we could hear discussions on Bearman’s side affording a chance to understand a little more about how the team on the other side of the garage was faring, and whether there was consistency in the feedback between the two drivers.

It also offered some insight into the approach to the session and what each was trialling, as the team appeared to split its priorities across the garage to effectively turn the 60-minute practice session into 120 minutes.

As the session ended, both Ocon and Bearman took to the grid for a practice start, before circling back to pit lane where they queued in the box in front of the Haas garage. The radio chatter continued; devoid of emotion or excitement, delivered in a conversational and matter-of-fact tone that belied the fact it was often being communicated at 300km/h.

Of the 20 drivers in the session, Ocon had been 17th fastest, two places behind Bearman, with a combined 56 laps in the bank. The team translated that into 12th on the Sprint grid for Bearman, and 15th for Ocon, positions they held in the 19-lap encounter on Saturday.

For the latter, that slipped in qualifying for the Grand Prix itself, with the one-time race winner capable only of 17th, an event in which Bearman failed to finish while Ocon climbed to 15th after a penalty for a start infringement in what was a difficult weekend for Haas.

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