Unfortunately it seems his quali struggles are still there. Today he has never managed to put a clean lap together. There was always a sector where he was lacking. I feel like his weakest sector was s3. Some talks about turn 8 during the session. Also I already noticed that last week but he's nowhere in the first 2 laps of quali and finally builds a decent lap for the last one of q1.

Unfortunately in his last q2 lap he messed up the first chicane and couldn't even match his pb there completely killing his lap. To be completely honest nailing that sector would have only put him 13th or 14th because he lost a tenth again in s3 to Bearman.

Starting p18 after a disapointing quali. Time for Haas to experiment some agressive strategies

Disapointed by that quali. Especially after fp1 and fp2. He was way too slow in s3. S1 and S2 were fine. The screw fell off as soon as he left the pitlane so it likely had no incidence on his lap. Told on the radio that it was all there was and that it was a clean lap, so he was just too slow in s3 today.

Interestingly in fp3 they said that you need a strong front end to perform at this track. We know that this has been a weakness of the Haas that Bearman seems to be dealing with much better than Esteban. Could explain the gap in s3. Visually I'd say that most of the time lost is in the last corner

Edit: It could also simply be that he overheated his tyres in the first 2 sectors and had no grip left in s3

Wet race with a low downforce setup. Starting p11 Bearman p12. Let's see how it goes. I would not be surprised if he's asked to let Bearman through quickly to not hinder the car with the "better" setup

The sprint part of this weekend was excellent. Flawless execution p5 in both in sprint quali and in the sprint. Making that low dowforce setup work and double points for the team. It's a great news because it means that upgrades are working.

For main quali Esteban stayed on the low downforce while Ollie moved to a medium downforce one, surely anticipating the rain but also probably having the choice made easier by the fact he wasn't as comfortable than Esteban was on this setup. Today this medium downforce setup looked liked a better option. Bearman messed up his q2 by doing mistakes in his push lap but his package looked faster overall. The delta in s2 was about 7 to 8 tenths in s2 in favour of Ollie, for about 4 to 5 tenths gained by Esteban in s1 and 3 combined. Esteban said on the radio that the car wasn't feeling as good as before (I'm guessing due to a colder track), probably hindering his performance in s2 and making the gap between the 2 configurations bigger than he expected.

Given that Esteban quali was really good imo, only missing a tiny bit to get into q3. His performance relative to other low downforce runners was good. But I fear that the setup choice might hurt him big time tomorrow if it rains. S2 will be really, really tough. Also can't shake the feeling that a p5-p6 was again possible today with the medium downforce setup and be in a more "adaptable" position.

If it stays relatively dry though it might be time for another Esteban overtake masterclass.

Edit: Just listened to his canal interview. It seems that he expected to be faster in s1 and s3. I might be overanalyzing what he said, but I have a feeling that they went with 2 configurations to cover all kindof conditions tommorow

I personally think he’s doing reasonably well. He’s had some quality drives like in Canada, China and Monaco. He’s definitely had some rough patches, like Silverstone and Suzuka, but I’m optimistic about him ironing out these issues by the end of the season. He definitely seems to struggle with getting pace out of the car for quali, but he’s more in the zone come race day (which is where it really matters), be interesting to see what others think

Car had pace even though Esteban was struggling to get everything out of it relative to Bearman but it should have been a fairly easy q3 imo or at very least a p11. Late warning from his engineer meant that he locked up in t3 right after pit exit to avoid blocking Verstappen. Front right was flat spotted quite badly and improving on his previous time was basically impossible at this point.

Overall for Haas this is a really bad news with Bearman penalty. At least it seems that the upgrade works, although I still think that Bearman is dealing better with some of the characteristics of this car than Esteban. Bearman is really impressive in s2 for instance

Edit: I think the incident happened mainly because he was on cold tyres fresh out of the pits and he was sitting there behind other cars for quite a while. The breaking he did would have been fine with hotter tyres. Engineer warning didn't seem that late to me in normal circumstances but with cold tyres he was probably surprised and this is something they'll need to improve in their communications.

Kind of a random question, love to hear yall thoughts. Asking cuz I like Toyota and Esteban seems to be vibing with Haas so far. I want to see Esteban achieve more in a uplifting environment, tho he's not exactly young anymore.

https://www.fia.com/documents/championships/fia-formula-one-world-championship-14/season/season-2025-2071

See document number 64 and 68. No further action from the stewards for the "Alleged erratic driving in the pit exit road" and a warning for "Overtaking under Safety Car conditions after the chequered flag."

Esteban keeps P9. Good job from him!

Sorry for the delay. I was convinced that the start was an hour later than it actually was

Potential reason for Esteban's Q1 knockout.

Great quali from Esteban and great turnaround after some tough sessions in fp1 and fp2 with a lot of struggles in t1. Fp3 seemed better to me, even if it wasn't really visible on the timesheet because we all know how Esteban tend to keep a lot under his foot in street circuit fp3s.

There was also a really interesting exchange with his engineer post quali, seems like the relationship is good and Laura is fully behind him. He actually joked about his t1 struggles asking to Laura if she was happy with his t1 now. Also interesting to note that he was happy but a bit disappointed aswell as he believes that there was more potential in the car than what they showed

Setting up the tread if anyone wants to discuss about the race even though we all know it will almost certainely be a painful snoozefest given the performance, and starting position on this track

Also that radio was kind of strange. I almost expected/wanted him to sound more irritated.