Esteban Ocon has had to swat away one of those pre-season paddock “mysteries” that somehow escapes the circuit and grows legs online: the Haas driver was photographed in the Barcelona grandstand holding a crutch, and within minutes the narrative wrote itself. Ocon, injured. Ocon, bravely driving anyway. Ocon, cleared by the team’s medical staff.
Ocon’s response, delivered with the kind of laugh that tells you he can’t quite believe he’s even being asked, was blunt. The crutches weren’t his — they were his father’s, following knee surgery — and the idea that anyone thought an F1 driver could be hopping around and still climb into a car in the first place struck him as vaguely ridiculous.
“How on earth would I be able to drive an F1 car if I was on crutches?” Ocon said, describing the rumour as “a little bit of an insult”. The point wasn’t just pride, either. The modern cockpit is a brutal environment even when you’re 100 per cent; if you’re compromised, it shows instantly in braking confidence, steering load, recovery from snaps, even the ability to consistently hit engine and energy deployment targets.
But the more interesting part of Ocon’s story wasn’t the denial — it was what he was doing up there in the stands with his dad’s crutch in hand. While Haas racked up a hefty 386 laps during the behind-closed-doors Barcelona running (only Mercedes with 500 and Ferrari with 442 logged more), Ocon spent time trackside studying specifics you don’t always get from the cockpit. He talked about braking points, car behaviour, and the way the front wing flap was closing through Turn 10 — the sort of detail that suggests Haas’ early focus is on stability and consistency through a key load-change section.
It also hints at what drivers and engineers are really watching in these early 2026 kilometres: not lap times for headlines, but how controllable the car looks at the corner entry where it matters, whether the platform stays predictable as the speed bleeds off, and how that carries into traction zones where power unit behaviour can be exploited — or exposes you.
From Ocon’s vantage point, Turn 10 into the 10-to-12 sequence was where the fingerprints of different manufacturers showed up. He noted “different strategies” in how the engines were being used on corner exit, and that it was “quite interesting” even in the wet. That’s the kind of comment that lands with a bit more weight than the usual “we learned a lot” testing cliché, because it’s specific: different approaches, same bit of track, visible from the outside.
For Haas, those details matter because 2026 is not a season where you can afford to arrive with a car that only works in a narrow window. Ocon is heading into his second full year with the team after a 2025 campaign that flickered between promise and frustration. His high point was fifth in China, but the year also underlined how tight the midfield is when you’re fighting for scraps at the bottom of the top 10. Haas ended 2025 eighth in the constructors’ standings, albeit with its best points haul since 2018.
Internally, there’s another pressure point Ocon will be fully aware of: Oliver Bearman. The rookie edged Ocon by three points across the season, and while that margin is hardly a demolition job, Bearman’s trajectory was what teams notice — a pace advantage in the second half of the year, plus a standout fourth-place finish in Mexico that matched Haas’ best-ever race result. In other words, the kid wasn’t just quick; he was converting.
That’s why Ocon’s Barcelona observation shift is revealing. It’s a driver making sure he’s plugged into the most granular, trackside cues early — how the car moves under braking, what it’s doing aerodynamically in a specific corner, and what the power unit behaviour looks like in the acceleration phase where lap time is either found or bled away. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t end up on a highlight reel, but it’s what separates a driver who’s simply “there” from one who’s actively shaping the direction of a programme.
And yes, it’s also why the crutches story never really made sense. An F1 driver isn’t “cleared” to race with a knee problem and a supportive Instagram narrative; they’re either fit enough to do the job properly, or they’re out — because if you can’t brake at the limit repeatedly and trust your body to do it, you’re a passenger.
So the crutch in the grandstand wasn’t a plot twist. It was, as Ocon put it, his dad’s — and a reminder that in February, Formula 1 can turn the smallest sliver of imagery into a saga. Meanwhile, Haas will probably be happier if the conversation stays on the more relevant numbers: 386 laps, plenty of running, and a driver paying attention to exactly the areas where the new season is likely to be won or lost.
