{"id":961495,"date":"2026-11-07T06:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T06:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/961495\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T06:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T06:56:10","slug":"toto-wolff-drops-esteban-ocon-and-vasseur-1-million-bombshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/961495\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff drops Esteban Ocon and Vasseur ‘$1 million’ bombshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercedes<\/a> team boss Toto Wolff has revealed how he and Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur played integral roles in Esteban Ocon<\/a>\u2019s Formula 1 career, including personal investments in the Frenchman.<\/p>\n

Wolff\u2019s comments come after Haas confirmed Ocon\u2019s axe ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix, after he was stood down during the Mexico City race weekend.<\/p>\n

Fred Vasseur part-funded Esteban Ocon Manor drive<\/p>\n

Neither Haas nor Ocon have publicly explained the reasoning behind that shock split, with Ocon only firmly denying rumours of a physical altercation having taken place.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old remains under Mercedes management, as Wolff addressed the situation in Sao Paulo.<\/p>\n

In doing so, he revealed that Vasseur personally put in half of the money needed to secure Ocon\u2019s first F1 seat with Manor in 2016.<\/p>\n

Prior to debuting in Formula 1, Ocon had won the GP3 title with Vasseur\u2019s ART Grand Prix team, and raced with its DTM squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Mercedes, we picked up the management of Esteban due to Gwen [Lagrue] actually,\u201d Wolff began.<\/p>\n

Lagrue, the team\u2019s former driver academy chief who also oversaw the journeys of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli into Formula 1, recently agreed a switch to Red Bull from 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how we got to know Gwen when Gravity [Sport Management] defaulted,\u201d Wolff continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then agreed to work with Fred in GP3. We won the championship together. Then there wasn\u2019t really an opportunity in Formula 1. Then the DTM door, we did that together.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I don\u2019t know if that is actually known, but when suddenly there appeared to be a free seat in Manor from Spa onwards, it needed $2 million, and we were saying we can provide $1 million for that seat, but we were missing $1 million. <\/p>\n

\u201cFred put the money in personally to give Esteban the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd over all those years, I think we were all very supporting and very strong, in trying to make sure that Esteban would have the best possible opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, then went through a couple of team changes, and I think at the end, it came to the point where Ayao [Komatsu, Haas team principal] needed to represent the team and protect the team from a certain rhetoric.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd on the other side, Esteban felt that personally he wasn\u2019t wrong in the things he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to respect that in the end the team calls the shots. The team principal needs to decide when it\u2019s enough, and that is what Ayao did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolff was speaking alongside Vasseur in the team representatives press conference at the Brazilian GP.<\/p>\n

More on Esteban Ocon from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n

Haas plan revealed following Esteban Ocon axe<\/a><\/p>\n

Jenson Button delivers damning \u2018who\u2019s going to want to pick him up\u2019 Esteban Ocon verdict<\/a><\/p>\n

Vasseur said of Ocon, his compatriot: \u201cYeah, I worked with Esteban in GP3, in DTM. I don\u2019t know if it was 10 or 15 years ago. With Toto also at this stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yeah, he did very well, I think, in the junior series, in DTM, in F1.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow to comment what\u2019s happened in another team, it\u2019s difficult. I have enough to do with my guys, and I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happened between Ayao, Haas, and the team and the driver. I don\u2019t want to make any comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, it\u2019s a shame for Esteban because I think he\u2019s a pure competitor. He put a lot of energy in all over the season to be in F1, and for this we need to have a huge respect. For this now, I won\u2019t make any comment on the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ocon was replaced by Haas reserve Ryo Hirakawa in Mexico, before Rafael Camara stepped in for Brazil, debuting on home soil ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

It was already known that Ocon would not continue with Haas into F1 2027, following the signing of Camara.<\/p>\n

Read next: Ferrari boss reveals outcome of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc talks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has revealed how he and Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur played integral roles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":961496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,3021,578,576,577,16874,7935,1613,1881,44,82,4503],"class_list":["post-961495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-esteban-ocon","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-fred-vasseur","tag-haas","tag-home-page","tag-mercedes","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961495","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=961495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/961496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}