{"id":820446,"date":"2026-11-01T05:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T05:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820446\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T05:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T05:04:15","slug":"mexico-city-grand-prix-esteban-ocon-denies-reports-of-physical-altercation-behind-haas-dropping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820446\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico City Grand Prix: Esteban Ocon denies reports of physical altercation behind Haas dropping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Esteban Ocon has denied reports that his being dropped by Haas at the Mexico City Grand Prix was a consequence of a row with team principal Ayao Komatsu descending into a physical confrontation.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman, 30, admitted in a statement on social media that “a difference in viewpoints led to a discussion with the parties involved”.<\/p>\n

But he said he “categorically rejected any reports or allegations suggesting that any form of physical violence was used to resolve any differences of any nature”.<\/p>\n

His statement followed a report in France’s L’Equipe, external<\/a> which said that a meeting between Komatsu and Ocon “ended abruptly, perhaps even physically”.<\/p>\n

The decision to stand Ocon down<\/a> from the rest of the Mexico weekend came after he had had a dispute with race engineer Laura Mueller about tyre choice during second practice on Friday.<\/p>\n

Mueller had informed him that plans to run the soft-compound tyre had been changed and he would now use the medium.<\/p>\n

He replied: “No, no. I want to do soft… don’t do that to me, come on.”<\/p>\n

The team have not issued any further information what happened after the session.<\/p>\n

So far, Haas have only said that Ocon has been dropped for this weekend’s race.<\/p>\n

The team announced last month that he would be leaving Haas at the end of the season. He is being replaced by the Brazilian Rafael Camara, leader of the Formula 2 championship and a member of the Ferrari driver development programme.<\/p>\n

Neither Haas not sources within Ocon’s management have commented on whether Ocon will drive for Haas again at any of this year’s remaining races.<\/p>\n

Ocon’s statement on Saturday continued: “I strongly condemn violence in all its forms and firmly believe that disagreements should always be handled with professionalism, respect, and mutual understanding.<\/p>\n

“I kindly ask that speculation be avoided while the matter is being addressed. Further updates will be communicated in due course.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Esteban Ocon has denied reports that his being dropped by Haas at the Mexico City Grand Prix was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-820446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}