Haas Boss Komatsu Explains Team Errors in Barcelona After communication breakdown

Haas lived a weekend to forget at the Spanish Grand Prix, the American team failed to score points for the second time this season after Oliver Bearman had to retire due to technical problems and Esteban Ocon settled for thirteenth position.

Ayao Komatsu, the team boss, was forceful in his self criticism and admitted that the team was not up to the circumstances on a track that was supposed to be more favorable for evaluating their upgrades: "This weekend the car was not fast enough and I think operationally we were not up to standard, if you look at part of the race where Ollie was on the hard tire his pace was decent, but from the first day of this weekend we did not operate at the level we should have and that has had a domino effect on today" declared Komatsu at the end of the race.

"In the race, the communication was not good enough, yes, the car needs to improve and be faster, but we are not getting the most out of it, as a team we have to look at ourselves and improve very quickly" he said.

Haas started the season strongly, Bearman scored a good haul of points in the first two races and placed the team in the fight for the midfield, but since they introduced their first major upgrade package their performance has deflated. In recent races, the drivers have had difficulty finding pace in qualifying, and in Barcelona both started from the back: Ocon was 17th and Bearman 15th, the Frenchman has not managed to get into Q3 in any of the seven races of the season.

Esteban Ocon, who at least scored a point in Monaco, described the race as an ordeal: "It was a very difficult race, we couldn't keep the tires alive and make them last the whole race, we had to do three stops because we couldn't keep the rear tires, they were completely finished every time we did a stint, it was very painful and we tried to hold on, but we had no pace at the end of the race," explained the Frenchman.

"We need to dig deep into the setup, I think we got it wrong this weekend from FP2 onwards, so I hope we can do something better in Austria" he concluded.

Bearman, who retired in Monaco due to first lap contact, also suffered problems in Barcelona. "It was tough, but we expected it, I don't think we were out of position, if anything we were further ahead than we should have been with good pace, unfortunately, with a few laps to go I was 13th, which would have become 11th with the two cars ahead retiring, and there was a problem with the car, so we had to retire" explained the Briton.

Haas hopes to improve in Austria to get back into the fight for points.