Bearman on Haas upgrade chaos: ‘We’ve been chasing our tail’

Oliver Bearman has painted a blunt picture of Haas’s Canadian Grand Prix weekend, suggesting the team has been stuck in a frustrating loop as it struggles to unlock the potential of its latest upgrade package.

The American outfit arrived in Montreal with new sidepods and a revised floor aimed at improving airflow stability and increasing downforce.

On paper, it was a clear step forward. In reality, it has turned into a far more complicated puzzle – one that has left the team scrambling between setups, compromises, and corrections.

Bearman’s qualifying result told part of the story: P16, just ahead of team-mate Esteban Ocon, who exited in Q1. Earlier, Haas even removed his car from parc fermé ahead of the Sprint, forcing a pit lane start in an attempt to reset the setup after a difficult Friday.

But the deeper issue, according to Bearman, is not just performance — it is consistency, confidence, and control.

‘We’ve been chasing our tail’

From the outset, Bearman made it clear that Haas has been reacting rather than progressing through the weekend.

"We've been chasing our tail all weekend really, it's been really challenging," he mused.

"We haven't been able to find a solution that's worked. To be honest, in the qualifying we were in a much better window and I was much happier with the car.

“But, you know, it's been the first time that I actually pushed a braking zone or went to the limit in a traction zone all weekend.

"I could actually finally lean on the car and now we're uncovering new problems. For example, I was having so many issues with front locking as I started to push. And that's stuff that I'm sure that the others, they found that out in FP1.

“But in FP1 we were so far out that we were not able to push the car at all."

That lack of early baseline running effectively left Haas behind the curve – discovering issues only once the pressure of qualifying arrived.

Bearman also confirmed that the decision to revert the car and sacrifice track position was a deliberate attempt to reset after Friday’s Sprint qualifying struggles, in search of a more usable balance.

A car on a knife edge

Haas’ introduction of upgrades was meant to unlock performance, but instead the changes have made the VF-26 increasingly sensitive – fast in theory, difficult in practice.

Bearman pointed to Montreal’s bumpy layout as a particular stress test for the new package, with the car’s behaviour changing dramatically depending on setup direction.

"The performance is there but it's just the characteristics of the car have become really challenging," Bearman explained.

"And the way that we tried to run the car, especially this morning, was so tough. It's probably best for ultimate lap time but there's so many bumps and curbs around here.

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"I was literally fighting to even see the corners with the amount of bumps that I was feeling. So it's been really tough. When we try and run the car in a way that's good for drivability, then the entries become really challenging.

"And when we stiffen it up to make it better, it's then impossible to find confidence. So we're kind of balancing that knife edge."

For Haas, that “knife edge” has defined the weekend – a constant trade-off between outright pace and drivability, with no configuration yet offering both.

And for Bearman, the conclusion is clear: the potential is there, but unlocking it is proving to be anything but straightforward.

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