Esteban Ocon will race for Haas in Formula 1 from 2025 after signing a multi-year deal with the American team.
Haas announced on Thursday ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix that 27-year-old Ocon would complete next year’s line-up alongside British rookie Oliver Bearman, who will graduate from Formula Two.
The Frenchman becomes the first Grand Prix winner to race for Haas, and the move reunites him with Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu, who served as his engineer for his first F1 test with Lotus in 2014.
Ocon said in a statement that he and Haas had had “honest and fruitful discussions” about the future in recent months, and that he would “join a very ambitious racing team, whose spirit, work ethic and undeniable upward trajectory have really contributed to the future. impressed me.”
The move means Haas will have an all-new F1 line-up for 2025, with Ocon and Bearman replacing Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, both of whom had already been confirmed to be leaving the team.
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“The experience he brings, not only from his own talent base, but also from working for a manufacturer team, will be beneficial to us as we grow as an organization,” Komatsu said of Ocon.
“It was crucial that we had an experienced driver next year alongside Oliver Bearman, but Esteban is only 27. He is still young and still has a lot to prove. I think we have a hungry, dynamic driver duo.”
What brought Ocon to Haas?
Ever since Ocon announced in June that he would be leaving Alpine after his contract expired at the end of the season, Haas always seemed his most likely destination.
Ocon was always going to be part of what is proving to be a very fluid F1 driver market for 2025, offering race-winning experience to interested teams following his shock win for Alpine at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix.
There were talks with a number of teams about a possible drive for next year, with Williams previously interested in him as an alternative to his main target: Carlos Sainz.
Ocon currently races with Alpine (Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)
But in recent weeks it became clear that a deal with Haas was close to being completed, especially after the team confirmed Magnussen’s departure to Hungary.
Ocon said last week that it was “very clear what our intentions are for the future”, hoping to get a deal announced before the summer holidays, which start next week.
He will join a Haas team that is currently experiencing a performance boost under Komatsu. It is seventh in the constructors’ standings and has already scored more than double the number of points compared to all of last year.
A new start for Ocon
The move will serve as a new beginning for Ocon, whose final season at Alpine has proven frustrating.
Between the team’s lack of performance and the tension with teammate Pierre Gasly that flared after their opening round clash in Monaco, there was always the feeling that a chapter was coming to an end, even before the news of Ocon’s departure.
The move will end Ocon’s long-standing relationship with the Enstone-based team, formerly known as Renault and Lotus, which began more than 10 years ago. He joined their junior academy at the age of 14, but their financial problems prompted Mercedes to take him under their wing.
Mercedes helped Ocon onto the F1 grid in 2016 and quickly won plaudits for his performance and consistency while driving for Force India, even qualifying him for a Mercedes F1 seat in 2020 as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate.
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But he was never seriously on Mercedes’ radar this time as they look to replace Hamilton, with the vacant seat likely to go to 17-year-old protégé Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who races in F2.
With Haas, Ocon gains long-term stability and, for the first time in his career, the chance to help build a team by acting as an experienced head alongside a much younger teammate in Bearman.
(Andrea Diodato/NurPhoto via Getty Images)