Haas set ‘totally clear’ rules of engagement between Ocon and Bearman

Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman are teammates at Haas for F1 2025.
Haas’ team boss Ayao Komatsu has said there will be clear rules of engagement between his two drivers in place before the season starts.
Haas will field a new driver pairing in F1 2025, with Esteban Ocon moving over from the Alpine team to line up with rookie driver Ollie Bearman.
Ayao Komatsu: Rules of engagement will be clarified
The new dynamic at Haas comes after two years of unexpected harmony as Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg – who weren’t always on the best of terms – ended up getting along very well as teammates.
With both men getting married in recent years, and having young families, their common positions in life led to an unexpected friendship quickly flourishing. This led to some races in 2024 when finding themselves in potential points-scoring positions, Magnussen would turn into a rear gunner for Hulkenberg in order to compromise rival’s races.
But, with Hulkenberg moving to Sauber and Magnussen being replaced for 2025, the American squad will have an entirely new dynamic this year. Securing the services of the experienced Esteban Ocon from Alpine, the French driver will be paired with Ollie Bearman.
The rookie driver, part of the Ferrari Driver Academy, made his debut last year as a stand-in for the ill Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia, scoring points on his debut. He would go on to score points for Haas later in the year, replacing the suspended Magnussen for a race as well as covering for the Dane when he fell ill.
Bearman now makes his full-time debut in Formula 1 and, faced with an entirely new teammate pairing, team boss Ayao Komatsu has said the expectations in how the pair treat each other on track will be made clear to both before the first race in Australia.
Ocon and Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly played together nicely, against expectations, over the past two seasons, but Ocon has shown a willingness to race teammates robustly in the past – leading to several tense moments with Sergio Perez at Force India/Racing Point in the late 2010s.
Asked about this robustness at a brunch with selected media, including PlanetF1.com Komatsu said, “No, no, the rules of engagement have to be totally clear from day one.
“So that will be clarified before the first race. You know, I don’t expect any teammate contact or DNFs because of that.
“But it’s good you have to race hard. Look at last year with Kevin, he is a hard racer, and [with] Kevin and Nico, the closest we came to an issue that didn’t become an issue was Austria.
“That was partly because we operated in a not-perfect manner, in terms of pitstop timing, etc. We didn’t help ourselves.
“So as a team, we shouldn’t be creating those messes but also with the understanding of each other as a teammate, the rules of engagement will be perfectly clear.”
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Revealing that the pair are on the same page about what they hope to achieve in terms of the car’s handling following their test outings in Abu Dhabi in December and Jerez last week (the team completed its first TPC with the VF-23), Komatsu said he has full faith in his driver line-up to flourish together.
“If you look at how we operated last year, and then how we can improve as a team – what we did well last year, what we could have improved, and then take that learning for this year,” he said.
“So honestly, with Esteban and Ollie, two very, very good drivers. Ollie is a rookie but I don’t treat him as a rookie.
“I said to him he can drive a lot with these young engineers as well, and grow together. We don’t treat him as a rookie, in the sense that we pay lots of attention to what he has to say.
“Because he’s got good experience in Ferrari’s simulator and he’s been driving our car, the VF-23 and VF-24.
“Every time he gets in the car, his feedback has been excellent, his approach has been excellent, and his speed has been great.
“You saw Baku, and Interlagos, both qualifying sessions, he out-qualified Nico, who was our reference. So, I think we have a very good combination. Really looking forward to it.”
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