Haas summoned to stewards over parc ferme lapse after Zandvoort qualifying
Haas has been called up by the stewards at Zandvoort after failing to cover Oliver Bearman’s car within the mandated window following qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix.
Technical delegate Jo Bauer flagged the American team for a procedural breach, noting that Bearman’s VF-25 was not covered two hours after the chequered flag – a clear requirement under the Sporting Regulations once parc ferme conditions apply.
The nuance matters here. This isn’t a technical infringement, where the rulebook tends to swing a heavier hammer and exclusions are common. It’s a sporting breach, which opens the door to a wider range of outcomes: anything from a warning or fine to a grid penalty, exclusion from the session in extreme cases, or a pit-lane start if stewards believe work was carried out outside the permitted windows.
Covers are more than modesty screens. Under parc ferme, they’re a line in the sand: cars are essentially frozen, save for routine checks under FIA supervision. Let a car sit uncovered beyond the cut-off and, rightly or wrongly, questions arise about whether any set-up tweaks snuck in under the radar. If the stewards suspect as much, a pit-lane start beckons.
For Haas, the timing couldn’t be worse after a ragged qualifying. Bearman ended up 19th, one place behind teammate Esteban Ocon and ahead only of Lance Stroll, who didn’t set a lap. It wasn’t for lack of promise earlier in the day, which is partly why Bearman sounded baffled by the car’s swing in behavior.
“I had a really difficult feeling with this car,” the rookie said after Q1. “Starting off in FP3 on the hard tyre we looked incredible. The feeling was also like, that was probably the best I felt in the car all year. Then we put the soft on, we don’t go any faster. So I think we’re misunderstanding something out there.”
That soft-tyre stagnation is the kind of head-scratcher engineers loathe at a place like Zandvoort, where confidence and commitment carry you through the banked corners and the wind can make a fool of even a dialed-in set-up. If the team was tempted to chase a fix post-session, the regulations leave very little room to maneuver — and a missed cover deadline only invites more scrutiny.
The Haas-Ocon-Bearman pairing has shown flashes this year, but the Dutch weekend landed on the wrong side of scrappy. Ocon’s 18th-place slot kept the intra-garage scoreline tight on a day when outright pace was missing, and the lack of progression on the softer compound hints at a narrower operating window than the team expected coming into Saturday.
What now? The stewards will decide whether Haas’ lapse was a simple procedural miss or something with competitive implications. A straightforward reprimand would be the light touch; a grid penalty or exclusion from qualifying would sting. The nuclear option — a pit-lane start — would likely hinge on any evidence of unauthorized set-up changes while the car sat uncovered.
Either way, Bearman’s task on Sunday already looked uphill. Zandvoort isn’t Monaco, but passing here demands a car that hooks up in the twisty middle sector and keeps its tyres alive long enough to attack on the banking. If Haas truly “misunderstood something,” as Bearman put it, the opening stint could be a long one — unless the team finds clarity overnight within what the rules allow.
Haas will know the margins. In a midfield fight where points are opportunistic and costly to miss, you can’t afford unforced errors, especially procedural ones. The next note that matters will come from the stewards’ room. If it’s only a slap on the wrist, it’s a get-out-of-jail card. Anything harsher, and Saturday’s disappointment risks turning into a full Sunday salvage job.
