Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman were left delighted after claiming a double points finish for Haas in the Sprint at the Belgian Grand Prix, with the pair converting their respective grid slots of P5 and P7 into a total tally of six points.
While Max Verstappen fended off the McLaren pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in the battle for the lead – ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fourth – Ocon was best of the rest in fifth place, a showing that the Frenchman is aiming to replicate in Saturday’s Qualifying.
“[I’m] super pleased with this,” Ocon smiled after the Sprint. “I think it’s six points for the team in total on a Saturday, so it’s a really good result. We can be obviously satisfied with this.
“The cars in front were the cars that are out of reach for the moment, with Charles just being quicker than us, so we finished on top of our race basically, and overall it was fantastic.
“We need to do it all again obviously for this afternoon which is not going to be an easy task, but we’ll push hard to make it happen.”
Bearman was similarly pleased with the outcome of the Sprint, in which he held onto seventh place despite facing a challenge from Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar behind.
“It was a good race,” the Briton said. “Nice to score some points, both cars in the points in a Sprint race which is no mean feat. It was a fight out there for sure.
“I think we lacked a little bit of pace, the rear wing that we have means that we’re very difficult to overtake, so on the straights we were absolutely flying.
“It does make the car balance then a bit difficult over a longer stint so we need to see what we do for tomorrow, also with rain in the forecast, but I’m happy. It’s been a while since we scored, so it’s nice to do that.”