Ocon’s Haas exit confirmed as Camara gets promoted early for Sao Paulo GP

Esteban Ocon will not race for Haas again this season as Rafael Camara (pictured above) will make his Formula 1 debut for the team at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

The Brazilian was already confirmed as racing for Haas in 2027 in place of Ocon in a deal that was announced last month. Following Haas’ decision to drop Ocon during the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend after an internal incident on Friday night, the team has now confirmed that Ocon will not return in 2026 and Camara will be promoted into a race seat at Interlagos.

Despite scoring points on his debut in Mexico City, reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa is unavailable due to his existing World Endurance Championship commitments with Toyota. Haas is understood to have considered fellow reserve Jack Doohan, but teams are limited to running four different race drivers during a season, so such a move would have ruled Camara out from participating in any of the remaining rounds.

“We have now notified Esteban Ocon that he will not return to a race seat with TGR Haas F1 Team this season,” team principal Ayao Komatsu said. “Such decisions are never made lightly, as was the case in Mexico City - but then, as now, we feel this is firmly in the best interest of the team moving forward.

“The conversations that ultimately unfolded between the team and Esteban remain an internal matter, and we will continue to respect the private nature of closed-door situations.

“Looking ahead, we’ve chosen Rafael Camara to drive alongside Ollie Bearman at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Having excelled in his TPC outing in August, we know Rafa’s capabilities and we’re looking forward to welcoming him into the team this weekend and working with him through his Formula 1 debut driving the VF-26 in Brazil.”

Camara has yet to appear during an F1 race weekend and had been due to take part in FP1 for Ferrari at Interlagos, but the Scuderia will now likely run Dino Beganovic instead.

RACER understands the decision only relates to the Sao Paulo Grand Prix driver lineup for now, and no final decision has been made over who out of Camara and Hirakawa will race in the final tripleheader of consecutive weekends of the season.

Topics

haas f1 team

esteban ocon

rafael camara

sao paulo grand prix

formula 1

toyota

vf-26

ryo hirakawa

ollie bearman

Formula 1

Chris Medland

While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.

Read Chris Medland's articles