Haas has come out of the blocks in 2026 doing the one thing you can’t fake in the first proper running of a new rules era: getting the laps in, cleanly, with a driver who can talk precisely about what the car’s doing.
Barcelona’s opening day of running is largely taking place behind closed doors, which means the usual pre-season noise is muted. But inside the garages, mileage is the currency that matters. And Haas, fresh off a shakedown at Fiorano on Saturday, banked a smooth Monday and — by the team’s own account — logged more laps than anyone else, with Esteban Ocon completing 154 tours.
Team principal Ayao Komatsu sounded quietly pleased with that, not because it proves Haas has unlocked some early advantage, but because it keeps the team on schedule in a winter where schedules are fragile.
“In terms of mileage we managed to do, it was really good but behind the scenes, it’s a huge, huge amount of work,” Komatsu said. “I’m sure it’s same for everyone, but to even make the shakedown and then do the full mileage on the shakedown was a huge task.
“That was Saturday and then coming from Fiorano on Saturday to get us ready to run on Monday morning here was very, very good.”
The more interesting bit, though, was Komatsu’s read on what these 2026 regulations are doing to the dynamic between the cockpit and the pit wall. In his view, the new cars don’t just demand smarter engineering or cleaner driving — they demand better collaboration, because neither side can brute-force the answers alone.
“It’s not something drivers can do themselves,” he said, speaking about development work. “It’s not something engineers can sort it by themselves. So teamwork is even more important now.
“So engineers and drivers working together, which is what this sport is all about, but it’s a huge challenge. I think you will see lots of evolution throughout the testing, throughout the season, which would be interesting for everyone.”
That’s an important tell. Every team will talk about “learning” in testing, but Komatsu’s framing is more specific: the car is going to change fast, and the feedback loop will decide how quickly each organisation converges on the right solutions. In a year like this, the danger isn’t just that you start off on the wrong path — it’s that you can’t agree internally on *why* it’s wrong, and you burn precious weeks arguing with your own data.
Haas’ first day, by contrast, sounded like a straight line: run the plan, collect the numbers, match them to what the driver feels, then start picking at details.
“So now we can start looking a bit more in the details,” Komatsu said. “But with this brand new regulation, it’s very, very important to run and then every time we go out, we learn something new.”
He also offered the most honest summary of what the opening days of a new cycle actually look like: for every problem you solve, another one politely introduces itself.
“It’s very satisfying that we hit our target of doing the shakedown and then being ready for day one of this Barcelona test. So that bit is very, very satisfying,” Komatsu said. “But now that we are running, we are discovering, let’s say, issues, problems you need to solve.
“But that’s what we are here for, right? So at least we are running, that means we are gathering data, we are identifying issues that we need to solve. Obviously, we just got started, but I’m very, very happy how we started.”
For Haas, the subtext matters. There’s no trophy for topping a lap chart that nobody can see, and Komatsu isn’t pretending there is. But there *is* real value in executing the basics when everyone is still trying to work out what “normal” even looks like with a brand-new car. Reliability, process, and communication are the early-season multipliers — the dull stuff that turns into performance later, once the aerodynamic and mechanical directions start to crystallise.
Ocon’s 154 laps won’t decide a championship. What it does do is buy Haas time: time to interrogate the data, time to tighten correlation, and time to turn those freshly discovered issues into a list of fixes rather than a growing pile of mysteries. In the first week of a new era, that’s about as good as it gets.
