One-sided 2026 F1 driver battle hasn’t always been a ‘fair fight’

The raw statistics of one intra-team fight so far in Formula 1 2026 make for pretty grim reading for one side of the garage: 18-3 on points, 11-4 head-to-head in qualifying, 9-3 head-to-head in races.

That's the current difference between Haas drivers Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon. But in the words of the clear winner, Bearman, it's "not always [been] a fair fight" because of a big issue Haas has encountered this year.

That problem is a frustrating parts inconsistency that team principal Ayao Komatsu has long been open about and that has affected both drivers at different stages throughout the year. 

In fact, Bearman made those "not always a fair fight" comments just before the Hungarian GP, where he would end up suffering with that issue, while Ocon had one of his strongest weekends of the year relative to Bearman. 

Ocon has generally been the more publicly frustrated driver, believing that prior to Hungary he'd only had "normal car performance" at Suzuka and Silverstone. 

Asked to sum up his first half of the season, Ocon said on Thursday in Hungary: "Too many difficulties really. Too many issues, too many things that prevented us from performing.

"Probably the most difficult first half of the season that I've ever had in terms of how consistent the car was from one race to another and how many problems I had this year." 

That's led to a lot of parts swapping between the Haas cars to try to work around that inconsistency in part performance, including between practice sessions. For example, Bearman's car felt "terrible" in FP3 at Barcelona because of parts inconsistencies and it left him "heavily compromised" for that event, according to Komatsu, while Ocon was compromised in practice in Austria before parts were swapped.

"It has been tough, definitely, because you always want to come in the weekend and everything to be smooth, just work on the car normally, fine-tune it and get the maximum out of it, but that is how it has been," Ocon explained. 

"I keep working with the team to help them as much as I can to figure out those issues and try and choose what is the best outcome for us. 

"All together, I am sure we will come out of this. It is true that it has been persisting for some time now, which is difficult, but we are sticking together and we will fix it." 

Ocon swapped to a different floor and rear wing within Haas's parts pool ahead of Friday practice in Hungary and felt immediately buoyed by the changes. 

He also benefitted from being granted his wish of a lighter steering rack in Hungary. 

"He's always wanted lighter steering on this car," Haas's head of car engineering Hoagy Nidd explained. 

"We managed to get that for him, so he was pretty happy right from the get-go.” 

Despite this, he was wary of a repeat of Spa - where he had been happy on Friday only for the race engine to go in the car on Saturday and suddenly be accompanied by a "rear downforce loss and an imbalance between front and rear". 

However, the momentum continued into qualifying in Hungary - where Ocon was two tenths quicker than Bearman in Q1, advancing while Bearman was knocked out - and into the grand prix, where Ocon finished as the lead Haas for only the second time this year when both drivers have finished. 

"We had the consistency back," Ocon enthused after the race. 

"The car was healthy all weekend. We managed to keep the same performance from Friday to Saturday to Sunday and the same car balance, etc. So that was good."

'Hoping to be on the good side'

The parts inconsistency issue means Haas is struggling to field two cars that allow the drivers to extract the maximum of the car's theoretical potential each weekend. 

It's leaving Bearman and Ocon heading into every weekend hoping they're not the one on the wrong side of it.

"It's been a horrible, horrible weekend and it's just a sign of how poor we are in terms of consistencies, because if it's not me, which it has been this weekend, and maybe one or two others, it's Esteban's car that is suddenly missing 10-15 points of load," Bearman said on Sunday in Hungary.

"So you're kind of just hoping you're going to be on the good side and if you are, you're going to have a decent weekend, and if you're not, you're going to have a really, really long one. We had the long one." 

It's why on the eve of the Hungarian GP Bearman declined the chance to talk up his big intra-team advantage so far when he was asked if he was surprised to be so far ahead of Ocon.

He replied: "It's a tough situation that is happening at our team. The inconsistency between our parts has been quite high. I've been on the bad side of that and I've also been on the good side of that, but it's a shame because it means that you're always chasing a moving target. Overnight, we can have changes to our car balance without expecting that. 

"All of that is to say that it's not always a fair fight, the one that we are having, and sometimes we feel like we're fighting with our hands almost tied behind our backs.

"Of course, I feel like I'm performing at a really high level, and I really see a step in my performances from 12 months ago, even from the start of the season. That's all I can do. 

"It's been a challenge for us. I'm happy with what I'm doing, but the story is not necessarily what you see in the headline."

Exactly what is causing the issue is unclear. Komatsu said "certain things we identified, we solved [them], but we still have issues" to resolve. 

'Very difficult to get the true picture'

It's already difficult with the quirks of the F1 2026 power units to get a proper read of which drivers are doing the best job this year, but Haas's parts inconsistencies have added an extra layer of murkiness. 

Then there's also an element of the 18-3 points difference being skewed by how the early races played out when Haas had a car capable of even challenging Red Bull in Shanghai, before it slipped into the middle of the midfield, failing to score points in the last six events running. 

"It's very difficult from outside to see the gap between team-mates," Komatsu said. 

"If you look at the points difference, some of the points difference happened because of the safety car as well. In Shanghai, Ollie got the full benefit of [pitting under the] VSC or safety car [and finishing fifth]. Esteban didn't [and collided with Franco Colapinto and finished 14th]. 

"Then [at Spa] on Friday, when he [Ocon] was happy with the car, he was reasonably close to Ollie. He was within two tenths. Then Saturday onwards, he just wasn't happy with the car. But honestly, we didn't change much at all. We still don't understand it. 

"But clearly, when he was happy, it's not about laptime. He's obviously got a good feel to the car. So, without looking at his laptime, he said, 'Yeah, I'm happy with this car'. Guess what? He's close to Ollie. But FP3, he goes out, straight away, he said stability is gone. We don't understand why. He's absolutely nowhere close to Ollie.

"So yeah, I think it's very, very difficult to get the true picture."

This kind of quirk could naturally be a serious complication when deciding your driver line-up going forward. But when that was put to Komatsu, he said: "At least I know exactly what's happening. So, yeah. I can put everything into context, if you like."

Even with those Shanghai caveats, there's still no doubt that Bearman has clearly been the stronger Haas driver this year. And had Haas kept up its development pace, there's little reason to think Bearman wouldn't still have a healthy points margin over Ocon. 

There's good reason why it's Ocon's seat that's the subject of so much speculation, and the only question mark over Bearman's future is whether Haas can hang on to him. 

Bearman has spent 64% of the racing laps in 2026 ahead of Ocon - an improvement on a near 50/50 split last year - meaning Hungary was a rare off-weekend in what has generally been a really strong second year in F1.

So Ocon will need more weekends like Hungary if he's to retain his seat and his place in F1. That's unlikely to be judged by the end-of-season points totals, but by what Ocon adds to the "context" Komatsu has when assessing the not-always-fair fight.