How Bearman’s Japanese GP performance demonstrated why Haas signed him

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has praised the maturity shown by Oliver Bearman both on and off the track after the Formula 1 rookie sealed a top-10 finish in Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.

Having been 10th before being promoted to eighth place in China following the disqualifications of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, Bearman scored another point at Suzuka, qualifying 10th before finishing in the same position.

Both Bearman and Komatsu professed surprise at the 19-year-old even getting out of Q1, let alone making it all the way to the top-10 shootout.

The achievement was all the more impressive given Haas had arrived in Japan with an untested floor upgrade.

Bearman made it work where his more experienced team-mate Esteban Ocon struggled, and Komatsu insisted he was not surprised by the youngster’s ability to feed crucial information back to the team.

“We knew that from last year, this is a big part of the reason why we signed Ollie,” he said.

“We started working with him in Mexico ‘23 when he was 18. He was impressive straight away in that regard and then last year, every time we worked with him, his feedback was accurate, he understood the programme, he understood the objectives.

“So it’s not just about driving fast; of course he can drive fast, but he really is able to, let’s say, digest or understand what’s required of him and then execute the programme. So it’s great, but we’re not surprised. I’m not surprised because we knew how much potential he had.

“For everyone to execute the race in that way and Ollie to drive in that way to get P10 was a really good reward. So it’s just lots of work just to get one point. I’m very pleased that we managed to get something out of this weekend.

“If you look at our competitiveness on Friday, it didn’t look like we were getting out of Q1, so Friday night I was focusing, how can we get a bit more performance out of the car and driver, to get out of Q1. Then we tweaked a few things overnight, and then FP3 to qualifying, and then to get to Q3 was amazing.”

While Haas clearly took a big step forward in terms of performance, Komatsu did admit it was something of a “risk” to bring the new floor to Japan.

The fact it ultimately proved a risk worth taking, however, will not lead to similar chances being taken with future updates to the car.

“It’s not hard, because we’re pretty clear,” he said on the challenge of being restrained with other upgrades. “Obviously depending on the size of the issue.

“The fact that this upgrade we brought here actually did what it’s supposed to do it actually takes that pressure off, if you like. If this made no difference, and then we had to set up the car in a very non-performing window, then that might be more added pressure, ‘oh shit, haven’t solved anything at all’.

“But still, we knew that in other areas, if we don’t go through the diligent iterative process, we can get lost completely. So it was good that this worked, but no, for the future development, we won’t be shortcutting.”