Esteban Ocon made it official on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
He will not be returning to Haas for the 2027 Formula 1 season.<\/p>\n
Ocon\u2019s status as Haas has been an open question throughout the past few months, as the veteran driver struggled to keep pace with teammate Oliver Bearman. Ocon entered last weekend\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix with just three points on the season, and while he more than doubled that total with an eighth-place finish \u2014 one spot ahead of Bearman \u2014 it was not enough to keep his spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy time with Haas F1 Team will come to an end at the end of the 2026 season,\u201d read a statement posted by Ocon on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI leave this project with my head held high and proud of my performances in what were not always the easiest of circumstances for various reasons and factors outside of my control.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy immediate focus is the next race weekend. I will continue to work hard with the team, maximise every opportunity, and keep extracting every bit of performance from the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are still many races to go this season and, as always, I will give it my everything behind the wheel for myself and for my team.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to reports from the official F1 channel, Ocon was informed of the team\u2019s decision to move in a different direction during last weekend\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. It is believed that F2 driver, and Ferrari academy prospect, Rafael C\u00e2mara is a favorite for the seat next to Bearman next year. While Bearman\u2019s status has not bee officially confirmed, he has performed well enough to earn more time with the team.<\/p>\n
As for Ocon, the difficulty for the veteran driver will be finding a spot on the F1 grid for next season, with the majority of team having already confirmed their lineups for 2027. One potential landing spot was removed on Tuesday, as Fernando Alonso announced he will be back at Aston Martin for another season. The only spots yet to be officially confirmed are at Visa Cash App Racing Bulls and Mercedes.<\/p>\n
However, it is largely believed that Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad will be back at VCARB, and Mercedes is sure to retain George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, as the contracts announced for those drivers in October of 2025 are believed to contain several options for 2027 and beyond.<\/p>\n
So where might that leave Ocon? He came up through the Mercedes program, and when he was left without a seat for 2019, he shifted into a reserve role with the team under Toto Wolff, who has managed Ocon\u2019s career. With the options on the grid dwindling, a return to Mercedes in a reserve role might be his best \u2014 and only \u2014 option in Formula 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Esteban Ocon made it official on Wednesday morning. He will not be returning to Haas for the 2027…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":915243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-915242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}