Esteban Ocon defends Haas debut season after Ayao Komatsu ‘expected more’ comment

Esteban Ocon said his performances last season were ’50/50′ on him and the team after Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu admitted they “expected more.”

Ocon finished three points behind his rookie teammate during his first season with Haas, leading to some honest comments from his boss.

Esteban Ocon reacts to Ayao Komatsu Haas comments

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust

Team principals tend to protect their drivers when speaking to the media but Komatsu again showed his penchant for doing things differently after he admitted the team had “expected more” from their senior driver.

“If you look purely at a sporting result, without going into details, for sure nobody is satisfied with Esteban’s sporting result last year,” he said.

“He’s a teammate against a rookie – yes, an amazing rookie, but nonetheless he’s got 10 years of F1 under his belt. He’s a race winner, he’s a podium finisher, so we expected more from him.

“Obviously it’s not totally his fault. It’s 50/50 – sometimes it’s that as a team we couldn’t give him the car that he was comfortable [with], especially in qualifying, and sometimes that was exaggerated much more than others.”

These comments were put to Ocon by PlanetF1.com ahead of the 2026 season but he said it was not all down to him and the comments from Komatsu did not come as a surprise.

“I think, first of all, I’m completely focused on this season,” he said. “So, you know, I don’t necessarily want to talk about ’25 but since you asked, I’m going to respond to you.

“It was not really a surprise to see Ayao’s comment. We talked a lot during the winter, and obviously, you know, it’s been an up and down season for the whole team. It hasn’t been very straightforward.

More news from PlanetF1.com

* Bearman explains why Haas rejected Ferrari’s ‘heavy’ rear wing gamble
* Why Red Bull was the real winner of F1 2026 testing
* Red Bull boss calls for ‘gloves-off’ F1 2026 engine fight

“But when you read the whole article, not just the headline, you know, you can see that the team has taken responsibility as well. I also said it was 50/50.

“I said it many times, you know, last year for like, 12, 13, 14 races, I had this issue of front locking, this issue of instability, and this is something that was very different on the other side of the garage.

“It’s not a matter of confidence or just not managing to drive the kind of driving style. It was similar pressure on the brakes, similar condition across the two cars, locking for me, not on the other side.”

Ocon suggested the issue existed all the way up until the final race of the year in Abu Dhabi when the team managed to solve it.

“So we were clear about something that was not going on, and that was the case until Friday in Abu Dhabi. Whatever we have changed in Abu Dhabi, I’m not going to go into detail, because that’s down to us, you know, inside. But whatever we have changed, suddenly the car came back to life.

“I was half a second away from where I should be on Friday, and then on Saturday morning, we performed the way we should.

“So, you know, we’re working all together always to try and do the best. There are things that we’ve missed, you know, as a team overall, and that we should have done better. And, you know, I’m expecting that we all do that this year, and we put, obviously, last year behind us.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: Christian Horner reveals ‘loss and hurt’ after Red Bull axing