Is Haas 2026 Team-Mate Fight Too Skewed to Trust?

The raw statistics of the intra-team battle at Haas in Formula 1 2026 make grim reading for one side of the garage: 18-3 on points, 11-4 in qualifying, 9-3 in races. That's the gap between Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon.

But as the clear winner, Bearman, puts it, it's "not always a fair fight" due to a persistent parts inconsistency issue at Haas. Team principal Ayao Komatsu has been open about this problem, which has affected both drivers at different stages of the season.

Bearman made those comments just before the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he would suffer from the issue, while Ocon had one of his strongest weekends relative to his teammate. Ocon, often the more publicly frustrated, believes he only had "normal car performance" at Suzuka and Silverstone before Hungary.

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Ocon described his first half of the season as "too many difficulties, too many issues" and called it the most difficult start to a year in his career due to the car's inconsistency and the number of problems he faced. This has led to frequent parts swapping between the Haas cars, including during practice sessions.

For instance, Bearman's car felt "terrible" in FP3 at Barcelona, leaving him "heavily compromised" for that event, while Ocon was compromised in Austria before parts were swapped. Ocon explained that he keeps working with the team to find the best solutions and is confident they will overcome the issues.

Ahead of Friday practice in Hungary, Ocon swapped to a different floor and rear wing within Haas's parts pool and felt immediately buoyed. He also got his wish for a lighter steering rack, which made him "pretty happy right from the get-go," according to Haas's head of car engineering Hoagy Nidd.

Despite this, Ocon remained wary of a repeat of Spa, where he was happy on Friday but then suffered a rear downforce loss and imbalance after a new race engine was installed on Saturday. The Haas team-mate fight is clearly more complex than the numbers suggest.