Haas boss Ayao Komatsu has warned his all-new driver line-up that they will be subject to rules of engagement during the 2025 F1 season. Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon are teaming up to replace Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, with Bearman starting his first full-time season whilst Ocon joins from Alpine after a five-year spell. The Frenchman has had a troubled history with some of his team-mates in the past, including Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly, but Komatsu is sure that the new pair will not make any contact on track this year. Needless to say, the pair will still be subject to "rules of engagement." "The rules of engagement have to be totally clear from day one but it will be clarified before the first race," Komatsu told select media including RacingNews365. "I don't expect any team-mate contacts or DNFs because of that but no, it is good. "You have to race hard, but look at last year with Kevin, who is a hard racer, and the closest we came to having an issue was in Austria, but that was because we did not operate in a perfect manner in terms of pit-stop timing. "We didn't help ourselves, so we should not be creating those messes, but also with the understanding of each other as a team-mate, the rules of engagement will be perfectly clear." Article continues below.
History will not repeat itself
Bearman and Ocon is Haas' first all-new driver pairing since rookies Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin in 2021, a season in which the team struggled, did not score any points, with tensions rising between the two. However, Komatsu is firm that a repeat will not happen in 2025. "I don't think we will go back to 2021 seriously, if you look at how we operated last year and then how we can improve as a team what we did last year, and what we could have improved, and then we will take that learning for this year," he said. "I don't look that far back to 2021 it is completely different around dynamics and drivers, so we have two very good drivers and they've both got a lot more to prove."
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