Haas reveal Oliver Bearman 'crunch time' pressure after challenging results

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has praised Oliver Bearman for his execution of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend following a turbulent run of form.

Bearman qualified in ninth place around the Marina Bay Circuit, marking the third time this year he made the Q3 segment of qualifying.

The Briton successfully converted his ninth-place starting position into ninth at the chequered flag, adding two points to his tally for the year.

His score aided Haas' push to make a late climb up the constructors' championship, where it currently sits ninth, ahead of Alpine.

Speaking exclusively to RacingNews365, Komatsu highlighted the tight margins within the field left no margin for error in the quest to bring home points.

“Everybody is so close together, if you look at qualifying, we are P9 but four-hundredths off Hadjar in P8 and then two-tenths off the fastest Ferrari,” he said.

“If you look at who we are and who Ferrari is, that is something we should be proud of.

“In terms of getting maximum out of how we are set up with organisation, size and everything, if you look at the qualifying result, we got maximum out of it.

“In the race, Aston Martin was quick. They had a slow stop, when Fernando [Alonso] came out, he was behind us. If we could go through the traffic slightly better, we had a chance to beat Alonso.

“But if you look at his pace, he was quick. So you have to give that to him. But we raced really well, execution was good.”

Although Bearman scored a career-best sixth-place finish at Zandvoort at the end of August, the weekend did not play out without complication.

Komatsu stated his more recent point-scoring finish from Singapore will provide a boost to morale.

“That’s a big positive this weekend, especially on Ollie’s side,” he said. “We've been talking about putting the weekend together. He's done that, his team has done that.

“We maximised everything, that was really good. That gives us and him a huge confidence to build on from here.”

Bearman pressure 'built up' after recent struggles

Following his point-scoring haul in the Netherlands, Bearman endured tougher periods in Italy and Azerbaijan.

The Monza race saw him pick up a penalty and inch one step closer to a race ban, while his weekend in Baku was compromised by a crash during qualifying.

Komatsu stated the setbacks created a sense of pressure for Bearman, but commended the 20-year-old for his response to the struggles in Singapore.

“The more and more you don't put the weekends together, of course, the pressure builds up,” Komatsu outlined.

“Zandvoort, a tough qualifying. Monza, he got a penalty unnecessarily. Then Azerbaijan, he was so quick but then a crash in qualifying.

“Here [in Singapore], it was almost like a crunch time. It's not like there's any condition that we’ve got to deliver otherwise [something will happen].

“Nothing like this. But even after great qualifying, my immediate thoughts were ‘right - we’ve got one more session to deliver’.

“It’s not like we can just celebrate. Then [in the race], we delivered. We knew that it was so competitive amongst those three cars - [Isack] Hadjar, Alonso, us and also Nico [Hulkenberg] as well.

“So to convert P9 start to a P9 finish, we knew we had to be at our best. And we were.”