This week the Haas F1 Team confirmed what had long been mooted in the paddock: Esteban Ocon will be leaving at the end of the current 2026 season. But the man himself has designs on staying in F1.
“My focus is on Formula 1,” he said in Malaysia. “That is clear, that's where I belong, that's where I want to be. So I'm not going to look elsewhere. But you never know what can happen in Formula 1. As you guys know, things move every two seconds. So I'm still working on trying to find a solution for next year. For now, our focus is that and to do well on track. I think we've done pretty well in the last races and, for me, that's the best way to show that I still deserve to be in Formula 1. Of course, I need the car to be competitive, which we didn't have for many, many races, including last year. So if we have that, it should work, as it did in Baku, as it did in Madrid. We'll see.”
Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon at Haas
Esteban Ocon has had two up-and-down seasons at Haas F1 Team after moving from Alpine F1 Team, where he spent five years before falling out of favour with the latest management regime, headed by Flavio Briatore. He won the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix for Alpine F1 Team from eighth on the grid, holding on tenaciously to track position he gained by threading through the first-corner carnage triggered by Valtteri Bottas.
His problem is that when Esteban Ocon is good, he's very good indeed – but when he's bad, the results are highly sub-optimal. At Haas F1 Team he has struggled with a car riddled with inconsistencies, but team-mate Oliver Bearman has generally wrangled better results from the same machinery and invested less energy in complaining about them.
As an independent team, Haas F1 Team is among the least well-funded on the grid, so it has often fallen behind over the course of a season through being unable to add significant performance through updates. Last year it got off to an unfortunate start when the VF-25 car suffered unexpected aerodynamic oscillations at high speeds, and was unable to run the low rear ride heights required to maximise ground effect.
Esteban Ocon also complained regularly about instability under braking which came and went unexpectedly. After Friday practice at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last year, for example, he told Canal+ he “felt like a rookie who's never driven an F1 car”. But for the following days the issues absented themselves and Esteban Ocon qualified eighth, then raced to seventh.
Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team
“For the past 10 races we should have been performing like that,” he said afterwards. “We clearly missed out on something. It leaves a bittersweet taste.”
Missed opportunities have been a recurring theme throughout the 2026 season as the VF-26 has also been bedeviled by inconsistencies. At several races Esteban Ocon has alluded to the car performing differently, with measurable shifts in aerodynamic load, after routine strip/rebuild operations with the same components. At the Italian Grand Prix he chuckled in the media pen post-qualifying when Autosport suggested he should hire an exorcist.
And yet it was understood that the team began to feel Esteban Ocon wasn't taking enough responsibility for those occasions where he underperformed relative to his and the car's potential – even though Oliver Bearman has found his own car to be inconsistent. Esteban Ocon has a directness which can be interpreted as undiplomatic at best, combative at worst. And yet it was precisely this quality for which he was hired.
“No, I don't think that has anything to do with that,” said Esteban Ocon when asked if he was in effect being punished for the car's issues. “I've just been doing my job trying to get the cars to where they should be. And at the end of the day, it has benefited everyone in the team because we see the result of the hard work that we've put in, and me pointing the fingers at the current issues. Obviously, I was the first one to experience that. So it took us a few races to realise that it was actually there. But we all realise since quite a while now that this has happened. And it's clear in everyone's mind, in the engineering office. So those are not the reasons.”
The most likely candidate to replace Esteban Ocon at Haas F1 Team is Rafael Camara – who, like Oliver Bearman, is a member of Ferrari's young-driver programme. He also brings some sponsorship, although this is understood to be a side benefit rather than the principal reason for bringing him aboard.
The only potentially vacant race seats for Esteban Ocon are at Cadillac Formula 1 Team, where both Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have options for next year which are yet to be taken up. There is also a possibility of taking a test driver role at Aston Martin F1 Team with a view to moving up when former Alpine F1 Team team-mate Fernando Alonso eventually hangs up his helmet.
“I'm not going to say I go here or there,” said Esteban Ocon. “I keep working with the team, trying to do well, and I will assess the options later in the year. But as I told you guys, you know, everything can happen in Formula 1. And I want to be on the grid next year, for sure.”
Esteban Ocon sits 16th in the drivers' standings with 7 points.
Source: Autosport
