Haas drop Ocon as Câmara gets Interlagos debut

Esteban Ocon's Haas career is over with immediate effect. The American team confirmed on 3 November that the Frenchman will not race for it again this season, and 21-year-old Brazilian Rafael Câmara will make his Formula 1 debut alongside Oliver Bearman at this weekend's São Paulo Grand Prix.

A row in Mexico City

The split began a week ago. After a dispute over his programme in second practice in Mexico City, Ocon was stood down on Saturday morning, with reserve Ryo Hirakawa taking over for the rest of the weekend and finishing tenth to score a point. French newspaper L'Équipe reported that the situation turned physical, a claim Ocon firmly denied.

On Tuesday team principal Ayao Komatsu confirmed that Ocon will not return to a race seat this year, adding that the closed-door conversations remain an internal matter. The parting was coming anyway: on 30 September it emerged that Ocon's contract would not be renewed, and Câmara signed for 2027 in mid-October. His debut now arrives several months early because Hirakawa is committed to the World Endurance Championship this weekend.

Ocon's career in numbers

Born in Évreux, Ocon made his debut for Manor at the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix before moving on to Force India, Renault, Alpine and, from 2025, Haas. Across ten seasons he started 198 Grands Prix, won once, reached the podium four times and collected 490 championship points. His final, truncated campaign yielded just 7 points from 18 races, with eighth in Baku his best result.

His finest hour came at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix, where he won for Alpine from eighth on the grid, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz.

Four starts short of a French record

The abrupt exit carries a statistical cost. Ocon sits third on France's all-time list for Grand Prix starts, with Jean Alesi and Alain Prost level on 202. The four remaining races would have taken him exactly level with them. Pierre Gasly, meanwhile, is on 197 and can pass him before the season ends.

He ranks high on another list too: among drivers with exactly one Grand Prix win, only Jarno Trulli (256) and Alesi made more starts.

Who is Rafael Câmara?

Câmara was born in Recife on 5 May 2005 and is a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, which he joined at the same time as Bearman. He won several WSK karting series before stepping into single-seaters with Prema in 2022, finishing runner-up in UAE Formula 4 and third in both the Italian and German F4 championships.

His breakthrough came in 2024, when he claimed the Formula Regional European Championship with seven wins. A year later he won the Formula 3 title as a rookie with Trident, sealing it at the Hungaroring with a round to spare. In his first Formula 2 season he leads the standings for Invicta Racing. In August he tested an older Haas car at Portimão, a run Komatsu singled out in the team's statement.

Two Brazilians at Interlagos

Câmara gets to start his F1 career in front of a home crowd. If Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto also takes the start, two Brazilians will race at their home Grand Prix for the first time since Felipe Massa and Felipe Nasr in 2016.

There is a neat twist in the venue. Ocon's last podium came at Interlagos, where he finished second for Alpine in 2024. Two years on, his successor turns his first racing laps at the same circuit, for a team whose cars have never finished on the podium in 465 starts. Haas has yet to say who will drive the second car in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.