Haas have had a roller-coaster-like start to the 2025 season. Despite being one of the slowest cars in testing and the first round in Australia, they managed to score almost one-fourth of the points tally from last year in China last weekend. On top of that, their new driver, Esteban Ocon, has also racked up a milestone within just two races for the American team.
The Frenchman did not have the best of races during his Haas debut in Australia, finishing 13th out of the 14 classified finishers. Ocon then bounced back brilliantly in the Chinese GP by finishing fifth and scoring 10 valuable points for the team.
Even his rookie teammate, Oliver Bearman, finished P8 in Shanghai, which has propelled Haas to sixth in the Constructors’ standings, just three points behind Ferrari and Williams, who are equal on points in fourth and fifth, respectively.
This is a huge result for Haas, who were a complete backmarker team until 2023, getting the wooden spoon several times. Previously, they have shown fleeting promise to change that. Kevin Magnussen’s top-five finish at the 2022 season opener was one such instance. Ocon matching that feat in his second race, though, does signal some good times for Haas.
The Frenchman is the first Haas driver to finish a race in the top five since Magnussen’s Bahrain 2022 heroics. While it is easy to say that the Kannapolis-based outfit has flattered to deceive like this previously, given how they faltered in 2022, they have shown decent promise under Ayao Komatsu’s leadership in 2024 to improve and sustain their progress.
With his 5th place in China, Esteban Ocon is the first Haas driver to finish in the top 5 since Kevin Magnussen in the 2022 Bahrain GP.
That was the first race of these regulations.
— Daniel Valente ️ (@f1guydan.bsky.social) March 28, 2025 at 8:03 PM
After the 2022 Bahrain GP, Haas just managed one more double-digit points scoring finish that year—in Austria—when Mick Schumacher finished in sixth and Magnussen finished in eighth. With them unable to carry their form to the other tracks, Haas ended up finishing eighth in the standings.
While the American team will definitely want to perform better than that, Bearman’s remarks after the Chinese GP suggest that their strong performance in Shanghai was simply because the track suited their car’s characteristics.
Nevertheless, Komatsu has been working tirelessly to raise the standards for Haas’ on-track performance by making several improvements in the team’s internal workings on the technical as well as the managerial front. Their 2024 campaign showed evidence of the same as the team did not have ups and downs in their performance as they have often witnessed.
As for their 2025 hopes, a few more races may be needed to assess where the team stands at the moment and whether they have the car that can help them target their best finish ever in the Constructors’ standings. Haas’ 2018 season, when they finished fifth in the standings with 93 points, remains their best campaign to date.
