Esteban Ocon has revealed the preparation that he has received in the build-up to his debut campaign with Haas in Formula 1 in 2025 has exceeded his initial expectations.
Ocon is embarking upon a new chapter in his career with Haas in 2025 having parted with the Renault-owned Alpine side he had been associated with since 2020 last term.
The Frenchman departed the Anglo-French marque with a round to go, enabling him to participate in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi with his new side’s 2024-spec VF-24.
Last month, Ocon conducted a shakedown at Silverstone with the VF-25, Haas’ 2025 challenger which he and team-mate Oliver Bearman drove in the sole pre-season test.
But with restricted running available to the drivers during testing, Haas was among the teams that took pre-emptive measures in advance with an outing in a previous car.
The Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) scheme permits mileage in machines older than two seasons, which Haas utilised to give both drivers laps in the 2023 VF-23 at Jerez.
The American squad’s inaugural TPC run derived from an alliance with Toyota, the Japanese marque now providing technical support to the sport’s smallest organisation.
Ocon, who had not been informed about the partnership when he signed with the team, divulged that his adaptation at Haas has been more seamless than he envisaged.
Asked whether he had discovered surprises in his opening weeks with Haas, Ocon told select media including Motorsport Week: “Yeah, yeah, there’s been.
“I’m not going to go into details, but I was obviously thinking that we were going to be more restricted on my preparation, not being able to prepare as well as we did.
“And we’ve been able to get the needs and what I needed. So yeah, all fine.”
Ocon pleased with Haas baseline in 2025
Haas is bidding to build on a promising season last time around which culminated in a three-place rise to seventh, though it sat as high as sixth with two rounds remaining.
Despite the team placing an emphasis on long runs in testing, Ocon divulged that he could feel that the VF-25 is an improvement on the predecessor he piloted in December.
“Yeah, obviously very good to get a first feel,” he said. “I drove in Silverstone, but unfortunately it was snowing there so it wasn’t really the condition that we hoped for.
“But yeah, finally got to drive the car for the first time. There’s a lot of positive points that are better than what I remember in Abu Dhabi, clearly.
“So that’s obviously very positive, but very quickly we’ve spotted where we need to get a little bit more, where we need to improve the car and that’s obviously what I told Ollie and the team.
“And it’s also been good to be working in real conditions with the team, with the traffic, with how it would run on a normal race weekend with all the tools etc.”
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