Esteban Ocon joins Haas F1 for 2025 season
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 will complete next year’s line-up alongside British debutant Oliver Bearman, who switches from Formula 2.
The Frenchman will become the first Grand Prix winner to drive for Haas. The move will reunite him with Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu, who served as his engineer during his first F1 test for 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 highly ambitious racing team, whose spirit, work ethic and undeniable upward trajectory have really impressed me.”
The move means Haas will field an entirely new Formula 1 line-up in 2025, as Ocon and Bearman replace Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, both of whom were previously confirmed to be leaving the team.
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“The experience he brings, not only from his own talent pool 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 vital that we had an experienced driver alongside Oliver Bearman next year, but Esteban is only 27 — he’s still young and has a lot to prove. I think we have a hungry, dynamic driver duo.”
What led Ocon to Haas?
Since Ocon announced in June that he would leave Alpine after his contract expired at the end of the season, Haas always seemed his most likely destination.
Ocon would in any case be part of what is proving to be a highly uncertain F1 driver market for 2025, with him set to offer race-winning experience to any interested teams after his shock victory for Alpine at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix.
There have been talks with a number of teams over a possible transfer for next year, with Williams previously showing interest in him as an alternative to its main target, Carlos Sainz.
Ocon currently races with Alpine (Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)
However, in recent weeks it has become clear that a deal with Haas was close to being completed, especially after the team confirmed Magnussen’s departure in Hungary.
Ocon said last week that it is “very clear what our intentions are for the future”, with the hope of having a deal announced before the summer break, which starts next week.
He will join a Haas team currently enjoying a performance revival under Komatsu, sitting seventh in the constructors’ standings and having already scored more than double the number of points they scored last year.
A new start for Ocon
The move marks a new beginning for Ocon, whose final season at Alpine has proven frustrating.
The team’s lack of performance and the tension with team-mate Pierre Gasly, which flared after their collision on the opening lap in Monaco, always felt like a chapter was closing, even before the news of Ocon’s departure.
The move marks the end of Ocon’s long-standing relationship with the Enstone-based team, formerly known as Renault and Lotus, which began more than a decade ago. He joined their junior academy at the age of 14, but their financial problems saw him taken under Mercedes’ wing.
Mercedes helped Ocon land a spot in Formula 1 in 2016 and quickly earned praise for his performances and consistency as a Force India driver, even prompting him to be considered for a Mercedes F1 seat in 2020 as Lewis Hamilton’s teammate.
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But he was never really on the radar of Mercedes this time around, who are looking to replace Hamilton. The vacant seat will likely go to 17-year-old protégé Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who is racing in Formula 2.
At Haas, Ocon will have long-term stability and, for the first time in his career, the chance to build a team by acting as an experienced team leader alongside a much younger teammate in Bearman.
(Andrea Diodato/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
