Why Ocon and Haas see the positives after being 'disappointed' with Madrid result

Esteban Ocon was left "disappointed" after just missing out on points with his 11th-placed finish at the Spanish Grand Prix, the closest he has come to scoring since Monaco.

However, the American squad took the silver linings from their disappointment given their latest raft of upgrades are seemingly delivering. The team’s last big package of parts was all the way back in Canada, and did not have the desired effect as a strong start to the season petered out into plenty of Q1 exits and fighting with the likes of Williams and Aston Martin.

But Haas brought updates to Ollie Bearman’s car in Zandvoort, with Ocon getting the aero package in Monza. There, the track characteristics negated some of the advantage, but it was on full display at the Madring.

“We are all disappointed, I think we could have got much more, we deserved to be in the points today,” Ocon said after the race. “The plan was to get both Audis at the start and we managed to do so, we got both of them off the line and between Turn 1 and 2. I got Gabi [Bortoleto] first off the launch and then Nico [Hulkenberg] around Turn 2. So, that was very good.

“We knew it would be hard to hold them off. But we were in front until the stop, at the stop we lost the position. We need to see what I could have done better, if I could have stopped a little bit better position or what happened as I think it was a decent stop so they must have done a really, really good one.

“But we gave it our all out there. I am proud of everyone, because we come from a long [run] where we were out in Q1, below P15. Now we are fighting for points, so it is pretty positive and encouraging for the rest of the races.”

Ocon qualified 13th in Madrid with his best one-lap performance since Japan. That put him right in the fight with the two Audi cars, although Hulkenberg was able to jump back ahead in the pit stop period when both came in under the VSC.

Audi are the team chasing Haas in the Constructors’ Championship, with the American outfit just four points ahead now thanks to Hulkenberg’s P10 in Madrid. But although their advantage was reduced, Ocon was still confident of the progress Haas have made.

“Since we got the update obviously, we are seeing when the car is healthy and we don’t have the inconsistency we can perform to a decent level and this is what we need to keep doing," he added.

Team boss Ayao Komatsu agreed with his driver, calling it a “really good” sign that they are all so disappointed with P11, a position that looked unthinkable before the summer break.

“The car was functioning very well, the drivers drove well, trackside and remote operations were really good, I think we did our best today. We lost out on the pit stop against Audi, but I don’t believe it was our team’s fault, it’s really the equipment that we need to improve to give them a better chance,” he explained.

“I’m honestly very happy, it was a huge team effort all around, and the car’s consistency was there, no issues as we’ve had previously.”

Even Bearman was able to find some positives, despite running down the order after a pit lane start ti finish 16th. He opted to take on some new power unit components after failing to take part in Qualifying following his heavy FP3 crash on Saturday.

“The car was strong, whenever I had clean air, I was right on pace with our competition. It was just unfortunately very rare that I had that, I was stuck in traffic,” he added.

“I’m positive again, we needed a clean day after what happened yesterday. In that sense we have had that so we can turn the page, learn as much as we can from yesterday, but turn the page, reset and come back stronger in Baku.”