Haas to give Ocon and Bearman “rules of engagement” before 2025 F1 season

Haas workforce principal Ayao Komatsu will make clear “guidelines of engagement” for brand spanking new drivers Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman to comply with within the 2025 Method 1 season.

The American squad has a historical past of flashpoints between team-mates – with former drivers Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean colliding a number of instances in 2019, whereas Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin often tried to occupy the identical items of racetrack in 2021.

These incidents occurred on the watch of former workforce boss Guenther Steiner, with Komatsu chief race engineer till his elevation to workforce boss firstly of final season, when Haas ran Nico Hulkenberg alongside Magnussen for the second 12 months in succession.

That duo solely had one actually contentious second through the 2024 marketing campaign – when Hulkenberg was unexpectedly undercut by Magnussen after struggling a barely sluggish pitstop on the Austrian GP they usually subsequently duked it out on observe.

However, given Ocon has a substantial checkered historical past of incidents along with his F1 team-mates – from his days racing Sergio Perez at Power India via to his clashes with Fernando Alonso after which Pierre Gasly at Alpine – questions have already been raised about what would possibly occur in his new relationship with rookie Bearman.

When requested if he could be doing something totally different when it comes to establishing clear racing guidelines at Haas this 12 months or if he was selecting to see how issues develop, Komatsu, who pushed laborious to safe Ocon’s providers in 2025, replied: “No – guidelines of engagement need to be completely clear. From day one. So, that might be clarified earlier than the primary race.

“I do not anticipate any team-mate contacts, DNFs, due to that. However it’s good, it’s important to race laborious.

“Take a look at final 12 months – Kevin is a tough racer after which Kevin and Nico, the closest we got here to a problem, which did not grow to be a problem, was Austria, proper? However that is partly as a result of we operated in a not excellent method when it comes to pitstop timing. We did not assist ourselves.

“So, as a workforce, we should not be creating these messes. However, additionally, with the understanding of one another as team-mates, the foundations of engagement could be completely clear.”

Komatsu additionally mentioned he was not trying again to the “fully totally different period and dynamics and drivers” of the Mazepin-Schumacher Haas line-up in 2021 in relation to setting out how he needs his squad’s new drivers to function in 2025.

“No,” he mentioned. “You take a look at how we operated final 12 months after which how we will enhance as a workforce, what we did good final 12 months, what we might have improved final 12 months, after which take that studying for this 12 months.

“So, I do not look that far again to 2021. [And] with Esteban, with Ollie, these are two very, excellent drivers. They each acquired much more to show, yeah…

“However it’s humorous about Ollie being a rookie, I do not deal with him as a rookie. He can drive so much, with these younger engineers as properly, [they will] develop collectively.

“We do not deal with him as a rookie within the sense that we pay a lot of consideration to what he has to say, due to course he is acquired good expertise in Ferrari’s training [and] simulator.

“And he is been driving our automobile – VF-23 and VF-24. Each time he will get within the automobile, his suggestions’s been glorious. The method has been glorious, velocity has been nice.

“You noticed in Baku and Interlagos [where Bearman raced in place of Magnussen last year], each qualifying classes he outqualified Nico who was our reference, proper? I believe we acquired an excellent mixture [with Ocon]. Actually trying ahead to it.”