Why “hooligan” Oliver Bearman is Esteban Ocon’s “finest” team-mate

When Esteban Ocon signed with Haas a 12 months in the past, he was in search of a more healthy working surroundings than the one he left behind at Alpine. Midway by way of 2025, he believes the transfer is paying off – each when it comes to outcomes and the ambiance contained in the crew.

Having beforehand endured turbulent relationships with team-mates resembling Pierre Gasly at Alpine and Sergio Perez at Drive India, Ocon says he’s now genuinely having fun with working alongside Oliver Bearman. The Frenchman factors to the pair’s shared enthusiasm for racing – and the absence of politics – as the inspiration of their robust partnership.

“We now have a bit of little bit of the identical ardour,” Ocon advised Motorsport.com. “Besides that he is a hooligan! As a result of he is younger, so he is experiencing… For instance, at Goodwood, we had this problem of who’s going to convey again the largest slick tyre after the run.”

Bearman in the end received that battle, producing viral social media clips at Goodwood as he turned the moist tyres on his Haas VF-23 into slicks with a large burnout.

“He simply found out some methods of overthinking the pc on the gearbox and every little thing. He obtained his rear wheels as much as seventh gear whereas he was doing 30km/h.

“I’d not have had the balls to do one thing like that! Even should you’re doing 30, in case your rear wheels are doing 280, the automobile can do some bizarre stuff. It was fairly humorous to see all that!”

Haas crew boss Ayao Komatsu additionally praised each drivers for his or her collaboration, pointing to the instance set at Spa when Ocon voluntarily let Bearman by way of with out a crew order. Even their conflict at Silverstone, which value Haas potential factors, was swiftly handled: the pair and Komatsu sat down collectively after the race, and the incident was barely talked about within the media.

“I did not take into consideration that, however it’s really an excellent level,” Ocon mentioned when requested if he was stunned that Silverstone didn’t escalate in the way in which comparable flashpoints had with Gasly or Perez.

“That is as a result of, you understand, we’re very straight and sincere between ourselves and immediately after the race, we sat down with Ayao there and we talked about completely different situations, what we might have completed higher to keep away from that state of affairs, the place we must always have taken care a bit extra and [at] what a part of the nook.

“It hasn’t modified the basic factor. We simply discovered a bit of bit extra what we are able to do in these sort of conditions.

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“It hasn’t modified the connection we have now with Ollie. [With him] I in all probability have one of the best relationship out of all of the team-mates I had.

“We actually get alongside tremendous effectively and it is good to have such ambiance contained in the crew and the monitor. With the crew boss as effectively – as a result of typically the crew boss might be fairly disconnected to what’s occurring contained in the engineering room. We’re all united, which is nice.”