Komatsu has held talks with Ocon on expectations from him

Ayao Komatsu has held talks with Esteban Ocon in the winter ahead of F1 2026 start, after his performances didn’t meet expectations.

Irrespective of the issues he faced in the car, Ocon was beaten by rookie Haas teammate Oliver Bearman in F1 2025 by three points. The Frenchman was roped in by the American outfit as an experienced campaigner to not only lead the team, but also help the youngster.

Over the winter, Haas chief Komatsu held discussions with Ocon to relay the expectations. He saw immediate results, especially in Barcelona shakedown. “We’ve had a very good ongoing talk over the winter, preparing for this pre-season, and then we understand each other,” said Komatsu to media including F1 website.

“He’s totally clear on what our team is expecting of him, and also I’m totally clear on what he needs from the team, so we cleared everything and set everything up before the Barcelona Shakedown, so I’m really happy with that. And then the way he approached the Barcelona test, again, absolutely progressed, so we’re working better together as a team.

“Esteban and Ollie are working well together – we’ve got to [work] better together to make progress as quickly as possible. At some of the testing we did, Esteban and Ollie’s feedback was very, very similar which is really nice in these brand-new regulations,” summed up Komatsu, who expanded on what is needed from Ocon in F1 2026, which will help the team push forward.

He acknowledges that Haas didn’t give him the car to perform as much, but the experience he carries, he feels that Ocon should have done a better job against Bearman, at least. The Japanese shared an example of Baku, where he felt that the Frenchman was far off against the Brit. “I think he understands who we are in terms of size of the team, the resource and how we need to prioritise, but also he understood the way of working a bit better ahead of the Barcelona testing, especially in a team like us, so I’m sure he can make more [of a] contribution this year,” continued Komatsu.

“No, it’s not just that. 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’s a team mate 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.

“Look at Baku – he really wasn’t happy with the braking performance and he was miles off in the Qualifying pace. Yes, Baku happened to be one of Ollie’s strongest circuits, but we didn’t expect Esteban to be so far off. But again, there’s not one reason – it’s not just the driver, it’s not just the team, and each instance is different. There’s no common underlining factor, but it’s just the process, how we work together to get to the bottom of it so much quicker and then put things in place for the next race,” summed up Komatsu.

The Japanese reiterated that as a whole Haas didn’t deliver as it should have, even though expectation from Ocon was there too. Komatsu feels the Frenchman showed his potential in Abu Dhabi when he fought back through the F1 weekend. He wants to harness that potential to help the team secure consistent results courtesy of both the cars in the challenging midfield battle.

“That’s the way I feel all of us together – team and drivers – didn’t do it very well last year, because I really felt like we should have got on top of that quicker,” said Koamstu. “Look at Abu Dhabi – on Friday he was completely off the pace, but [on Saturday] he was on the pace. Again, it’s not just one big thing – I would say it’s a few things that really trigger the snowball effect, and we really have got to get on top of those things quicker because Esteban’s potential is clear.

“If you look at Abu Dhabi and what he could do on Saturday and Sunday [where he finished P7], coming off the back of a poor Friday, that’s the talent he has and that’s the capability he has, and we’ve got to harness that. We’ve got to make sure we use that, because we really need two drivers this year – we needed it last year, but we need more this year,” summed up Komatsu.

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