More agile than its predecessor, powerful in hybrid mode: Oliver Bearman’s impressions contrast with a difficult second day of testing for Haas
After completing 154 laps on the first day of the 2026 Formula 1 shakedown in Barcelona, Haas only managed 42 laps on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on its second day of testing—and for good reason: the Haas VF-26 did not run like clockwork, but developed technical problems.
According to team boss Ayao Komatsu, Haas had already sorted out “so many” things and made a “huge step forward” at the start of the day. But then “two reliability issues” arose, which Komatsu did not describe in detail. However, Haas driver Oliver Bearman was forced back into the garage for a long time in both cases.
Komatsu revealed this much: he was “not worried” about the problem in the morning, but the one in the afternoon was “a little more serious.” “We are, of course, investigating and analyzing exactly what happened—and how we can solve it. We want to get this under control as quickly as possible, but at least it happened relatively early in our overall winter testing program.”
The consequences are still unclear. However, Haas skipped the penultimate day of Formula 1 testing in Barcelona to focus on troubleshooting. The US racing team will take its third and final day of testing on Friday.
Despite the technical difficulties, Haas driver Bearman is satisfied: “The car definitely felt very powerful with full battery power, and the amount of energy recovery we had to operate wasn’t too high.” During his laps, he got the impression that his new car was “more agile and easier to handle” than last year’s VF-25.
But Bearman also emphasizes that this was only the beginning. “It was the first time I was able to really push the car to its limits—at least to the limits allowed by the setup we were running. I’m looking forward to driving the car even more intensively.”