“It’s Not Meant to Do That”: Oliver Bearman Downplays Haas’ Recurring Body Damage as a ‘Niggle’

Haas were having a pre-season test of its own in Bahrain, with a completely outlier program to everyone else. With minimal focus on low-fuel qualifying runs, both Haas drivers were doing long run simulations to fine-tune their car’s race pace. While doing so, however, they ran into a complicated problem on their 2025 challenger.

Oliver Bearman was putting in the laps at the Bahrain International Circuit on the final day of testing, gathering data for his new team when a part of the chassis just came right off.

It left a big hole in the side of the VF-25, which of course, affected the rookie Briton’s running. What was more concerning was the fact that it had happened before to his teammate Esteban Ocon during a shakedown in Silverstone.

However, when asked about the same in the press conference, Bearman seemed particularly calm about the incident.

“It fell off,” the 19-year-old said with a smile, when asked what had happened. “It’s not meant to do that but no, we had the problem before and it’s something we’ve been managing. So yeah, a bit of work will be need to be done between now and Melbourne.” 

 

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That said, Bearman did acknowledge that this unfortunate incident — which looked like a bolt was loose in Haas‘ body-work — did affect his running during the pre-season test. “Of course, it got in the way of our running today, and after that we had to kind of run a bit differently and lose a bit of performance today.” 

Thankfully for Haas, this didn’t happen after the season kicked off, as they now have around two weeks to solve this issue before the first race in Australia.

What happened to Ocon’s car?

What the F1 community saw live on day three of Bahrain testing, Haas’ members saw behind-the-scenes last month. During their first run with the car in Silverstone, it was reported that Ocon had damaged the VF-25.

Pictures were shared on social media, showcasing a damaged sidepod.

The Haas VF-25 has already sustained some damage after the sidepod cover appears to have blown off during one of the car’s filming runs

Not the start to F1 2025 the team would have wanted!

camhardy_photo (IG) pic.twitter.com/MUQBBursDN

— Crash.net – Formula 1 (@CRASH_NET_F1) February 16, 2025

Although there wasn’t any footage available, it can be presumed that the two incidents were similar, with Bearman admitting that what happened to him in Sakhir had happened to the team before.

The Kannapolis-based outfit will be hoping to solve this problem before the Australian GP weekend kicks off on 14th March. Parts of their car flying around Albert Park randomly won’t be a good look for Haas, who are looking to make big strides.

Having taken a step forward in performance last season after a similarly focused testing program in Bahrain, the Ayao Komatsu-led team knows they can improve further. If the car’s bodywork being weak comes in the way of their progress, that would be an unwelcome obstacle.