Ayao Komatsu wants you to believe Haas is playing it cool on 2027 driver plans. Strip away the corporate calm and what you actually get is a team that’s collapsed so badly it can’t even work out who deserves to stick around, let alone commit to anyone in writing.
The Haas F1 Team boss says there’s no rush to confirm Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon beyond this year, insisting the priority is simply getting the best out of both men. Lovely sentiment. Shame it’s being delivered by a team that has scored precisely zero points in six consecutive rounds and just suffered a double DNF at the Dutch Grand Prix.
A Convenient Kind of Patience
Speaking before that miserable Zandvoort weekend, Komatsu insisted the focus was purely on performance rather than paperwork.
“We’re not in any rush. We’re focused on our two drivers, Ollie and Esteban, trying to get the best out of them. They’ve got the tough challenge, right? You know what they’re capable of.” – Ayao Komatsu, as reported by Formula1.com
Nice words, but “no rush” is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting here. When your car is going backwards relative to the field and your best driver is publicly questioning the consistency of your own parts, patience starts to look less like strategy and more like paralysis.
Bearman Stays, Ocon Sweats
Nobody at Haas will say it out loud, but the paddock consensus is straightforward: Bearman is staying, Ocon is not guaranteed anything. Reserve options like Rafael Camara and a possible Yuki Tsunoda swoop are reportedly circling, waiting for Haas to blink.
It’s not hard to see why. Bearman has 18 points to Ocon’s three this season, and while Bearman himself has cautioned that the numbers flatter neither man given the inconsistency he’s described in the cars, optics matter in this sport. Drivers get judged on the scoreboard, not on the small print. Ocon knows this better than most given how his career has bounced between seats already.
The Regulation Excuse, Again
Komatsu leaned hard on the scale of this year’s regulation overhaul to explain Haas’s fall from grace, and to be fair, he’s not wrong that 2026’s rules represent the biggest shake-up in years. But that excuse only travels so far when rivals with similar resources, Racing Bulls and Alpine among them, have found performance that Haas simply hasn’t.
“We started the season extremely well, much better than anyone can think of, and then from that moment I think that’s the reality. With our constraints, we’re trying to develop the car as fast as possible, but the other guys are putting performance on the car faster than us. That’s the reality.” – Ayao Komatsu, as reported by Formula1.com
Translation: we peaked in China with Bearman’s fifth place and it’s been downhill ever since. That’s a brutal admission from a team principal, even if he’s dressed it up in talk of “constraints” and “the biggest team’s” advantages.
No Blame Culture, Plenty of Blame-Worthy Results
Komatsu is keen to stress there’s no finger-pointing inside the garage, that everyone is aligned on diagnosing the downforce and drivability problems dragging the car backwards. Admirable in theory. But “no blame culture” starts to sound hollow when the team has gone six races without troubling the scorers, and both cars retired on the same weekend at Zandvoort with nothing to show for it.
This is the same season that saw Haas suffer a double DNF at the Dutch Grand Prix, a result that should have concentrated minds rather than reinforced the “everything takes time” messaging Komatsu keeps reaching for.
Believing In Yourselves Only Gets You So Far
Komatsu’s closing appeal, that Haas will “get through it like we did the last two years” through teamwork and self-belief, might play well in a press conference, but it won’t put points on the board. Rivals aren’t waiting around for Haas to find its feet; they’re too busy widening the gap.
The truth is simpler than any of the diplomatic phrasing on offer. Haas doesn’t have a driver problem right now, it has a car problem, and no amount of “no rush” talk about contracts changes that. If Ocon’s seat is genuinely under threat, as the paddock chatter suggests, it’s not because he’s driving badly. It’s because Haas needs a scapegoat that isn’t the car, and drivers are always the easiest thing to replace.
