Ocon has finally realised it: his time in F1 is over

It has long been known that Esteban Ocon has to leave Haas at the end of 2026. GPblog reported some time ago that Haas was looking for a new driver. Two candidates remained in the process, after which this website reported that Haas had all but reached an agreement with Rafael Camara for 2027.

That message seemed to fall on deaf ears for the Frenchman for a long time. Ocon made his F1 debut in 2016 and, apart from a year on the sidelines in 2019, he has been on the grid every season since. In all interviews conducted with Ocon so far, he still believed he would continue to drive for Haas in 2027.

According to Ocon, the drivers are not the problem at the team. There are other underlying issues causing Haas to not always score optimally. Something Ayao Komatsu and Oliver Bearman have also admitted multiple times. Nevertheless, Haas is now choosing a different driver.

And that is logically due to Ocon’s performance. Although Haas’s performance has not always been optimal, both drivers suffer from that. However, ever since last year, Bearman, then still a rookie, has handled it much better than his experienced teammate.

Ocon was brought in by Haas as the experienced benchmark for the team, but he never was. In the media session in Baku, Bearman expressed gratitude for everything he had learned from Ocon. However, those lessons were mainly off the track, when feedback was requested in debriefs. On track, Bearman had been bossing his experienced teammate from day one.

That part, however, was missing from Ocon’s self-reflection. Even when it emerged earlier this year that Haas was conducting TPCs with various drivers, Ocon could not imagine Haas would replace him. The drivers, after all, were not Haas’s problem, according to one of those two drivers.

In recent weeks, Ocon still didn’t seem worried, even as more and more information surfaced about who his successor would be. With the impending deal between Camara and Haas, it now appears Ocon has finally been informed by Komatsu. In the media chat ahead of the race in Baku Ocon suddenly spoke about having free-agent status, and when asked if Haas was still an option for 2027, his response was telling: “We’ll see.”

It’s clear that Ocon, last man on earth to do so, has realized that it ends for him in F1 after 2026. Normally speaking, for good, because other seats for 2027 are not available. Never rule out a surprising comeback, of course, but Ocon hasn’t exactly performed so well in recent years that he deserves a new call-up.