Haas the biggest surprise of the early F1 races? “We’ve beaten Red Bull on merit”

After a seventh-place finish in the Formula 1 season opener in Australia, Haas recorded another strong result early in the season in Shanghai. Oliver Bearman managed to reach Q3 on Saturday, although he ultimately had to settle for tenth place on the grid.

On Sunday, however, there was even more potential. While two of the four traditional top teams – McLaren and Red Bull – hit trouble, Haas managed to surprise. Bearman moved up to fifth place and therefore emerged as best of the rest behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

“It’s incredible. I always said we have to focus on the basics and we have to maximise everything. In the early part of the season, reliability would be an issue, so we just have to be there,” Ayao Komatsu told Autosport in an exclusive interview after the race.

“We cannot beat top four teams or top three teams now. Well, we beat Red Bull on merit today, so we were the fourth fastest team today, which is incredible. The unfortunate thing for McLaren was that they couldn’t take the race. We were there to take the benefit, so we just maximised everything. I’m just so happy.”

Perhaps the most telling phase of the race came when Max Verstappen spent several laps stuck around 2.5 seconds behind Bearman. It said a lot about the problems Red Bull was facing in China – including graining – but also about Haas’ surprisingly strong race pace.

Ayao Komatsu, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

“When I looked at FP1, Red Bull didn’t look amazing. But based on the sprint, I wasn’t sure if we had the pace to really fight Red Bull or not. But the sprint is a sprint, right? It’s quite short. But whatever it was, we had a decent pace [on Sunday] and our drivers managed it so well.”

Even better than expected after winter testing

In a sense, Haas’ performance looks in line with the promising early signs during winter testing. After two weeks of running in Bahrain, many in the paddock pointed to Haas and Alpine as the teams leading the midfield, although Racing Bulls and Audi managed to get surprisingly close in Melbourne.

In Shanghai, however, Haas and Alpine had an edge over the rest of the midfield, with a gap of around 20 seconds to the also surprisingly strong Liam Lawson.

“To be honest, this looks even better than Bahrain. Coming out of Bahrain test, I didn’t think we could fight Red Bull at all, and also Alpine looked really quick,” Komatsu reacted.

“Again, Gasly proved that they are quick, but we’ve beaten them on merit. It’s just brilliant how such a team works. Every single execution, we’ve done it very, very well, apart from the pitstop for Esteban.”

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: James Sutton / Formula 1 / Formula Motorsport Ltd via Getty Images

Without that moment for the Frenchman, Komatsu believes Haas could even have secured a double points finish, although the American team can still look back on a very strong start to the season with seventeen points from the first two race weekends.

After the opening two race weekends, the still-smallest team on the grid occupies fourth place in the constructors’ championship – ahead of Red Bull.

To read more from Autosport’s exclusive interview with Ayao Komatsu, head here.