There is now a seat open at Haas alongside Oliver Bearman in F1 next year
 |
| Esteban Ocon, Haas Photo by: Eric Le Galliot |
The news is finally out that Esteban Ocon will leave Haas at the end of the 2026 Formula 1 campaign following a disappointing time with the American outfit.
He joined for 2025 and considering his then eight seasons of experience, including four podiums and a victory in Hungary, Ocon was viewed as a real coup for Haas.
The Frenchman became its first grand prix-winning driver and, lining up alongside rookie Oliver Bearman, Ocon was in the perfect place to lead that team forward into the new regulations.
But it just hasn’t worked out. Scoring just 45 points to Bearman’s 61 in their 18 months together, while being consistently outperformed by the 21-year-old, has led to this news that was long expected.
Ocon’s replacement is yet to be confirmed though, so who are five drivers that could serve as Bearman’s team-mate at Haas in 2027?
Leonardo Fornaroli
 |
| Getty |
Leonardo Fornaroli is one of two clear favourites for the second Haas seat in 2027. The 21-year-old Italian is yet another Formula 2 graduate to have been forced to sit on the sidelines for an F1 team immediately after a title-winning campaign, having served as McLaren’s test driver in 2026.
But Fornaroli has certainly shined at the British marque with his development work behind the scenes, while also appearing in free practice sessions at Barcelona and Budapest - impressing at the former, taking fifth and just half a second off Oscar Piastri.
“It’s a very deserved opportunity,” beamed McLaren team boss Andrea Stella in Spain. “We have worked with Leonardo for some months now. We have appreciated massively his attitude as a person and as a driver.
“He is actually a very interesting character. He looks timid, but by far he is the most proactive driver in asking the engineers, he goes around with his notebook, takes several notes and as soon as he has an idea, he shares it.”
So Fornaroli is definitely viewed as one to watch within the paddock and should an F1 opportunity not arise for him, there’ll definitely be chances for McLaren to place him within either its IndyCar or World Endurance Championship projects.
But F1 is still the goal, and understandably so after being part of an exclusive club to have won the F3 and F2 crowns back-to-back. In F3 he achieved the title despite not winning a race, but instead focused on consistency - an incredibly hard thing to accomplish in the junior categories - before carrying that over into F2 last season.
“Leonardo is certainly an asset for Formula 1 in the future,” said Stella. And that might just be where Haas fits into the equation, particularly as Fornaroli completed a two-day TPC programme for the squad at Jerez in June.
Whatever happens, McLaren is keen to retain control over the Italian, unlike former junior driver Gabriel Bortoleto who was cut loose to join Audi, making Fornaroli available to Haas on a loan deal if the team wants to take up the offer.
Ryo Hirakawa
 |
| Getty |
Arguably the most straightforward option would be for Haas to promote its reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa into a full-time seat. The 32-year-old joined the operation in 2025 - following stints with McLaren and Alpine - thanks to his strong ties with Toyota, who is a current partner and title sponsor of Haas, providing design, technical and manufacturing services.
Against popular belief, Hirakawa also has plenty of single-seater experience with four wins and a runner-up championship finish during nine seasons of Super Formula in his native Japan. He has also conducted various TPC programmes for Haas, won the 2012 Japanese Formula 3 Championship and did three seasons of Formula Challenge Japan.
But hardly any of that is at an international level and there can be no denying that the sportscar scene is his bread and butter, having taken the 2017 Super GT title, a victory at Le Mans and the 2022 and 2023 WEC crowns, while also currently leading the 2026 standings with Toyota.
So it would still be a left-field option and with him two years old than Ocon, promoting Hirakawa might be seen as a strange choice by Haas. But he has nonetheless impressed the team and should he depart WEC, it is understood that Toyota would sign its junior Esteban Masson - not the other Esteban in Esteban Ocon!
Yuki Tsunoda
 |
| Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images |
Hirakawa is not the only Japanese driver that Haas could be considering, as Yuki Tsunoda is desperately trying to find a seat for the 2027 F1 campaign. The 26-year-old was once considered part of the furniture after four seasons at Team Faenza - under its various guises - where to his credit, he did a solid job, having outperformed team-mates like Daniel Ricciardo and Nyck de Vries.
The only issue was that Red Bull’s sister team is not a long-term home for anybody and so either a promotion to the main squad or looking elsewhere were his only options. Ultimately, Tsunoda got that promotion at the start of 2025 - thanks to Liam Lawson performing poorly - but he became another driver to struggle alongside Max Verstappen by finishing 17th in last year’s standings compared to second for the world champion.
So Tsunoda was dropped and forced into a reserve driver role at Red Bull for 2026, with Isack Hadjar taking his seat and performing valiantly alongside Verstappen. It looked as though Tsunoda’s F1 career was therefore done and talks about an IndyCar move emerged, until he was recently given one final opportunity to put himself in the shopping window.
That came after an injury for Hadjar, so Lawson took his seat at Red Bull while Tsunoda filled the void at Racing Bulls for the Dutch, Italian and Spanish grands prix. The Japanese driver performed well, taking a point at Monza and narrowly missing out at Zandvoort, so he looked like a version of his former self and was no doubt pleased by his performances.
“I’m super happy, I enjoyed this qualifying so much,” said Tsunoda after taking 12th on Saturday at Zandvoort. “I missed this kind of feeling, chasing the last few milliseconds. I was able to get used to it faster than I expected.”
The following day saw the man of 114 grand prix starts make a desperate plea for F1 teams to “call me”, with his options for 2027 still up in the air. Although on paper Haas may be an option, Tsunoda is still affiliated with Toyota rival Honda and that is likely to be something which holds him back on this occasion.
Is it worth switching allegiances, which would have long-term career consequences, for what may just be a single season of Haas? Although Honda got him into F1, ironically it might just be what stops him from returning full-time.
Liam Lawson
 |
| Getty |
One could just list all the Red Bull graduates at this point, but Lawson is arguably at a weird crossroads in his career. The 24-year-old made his F1 debut for Team Faenza in 2023, replacing the injured Ricciardo, immediately impressed, but then didn’t return until the final eight rounds of 2024 before starting his first, full campaign in 2025.
The problem is, 2025 saw him start the opening two grands prix at Red Bull but he was completely off the pace, so got moved back down to the sister squad where he has been ever since. History dictates that, unless it’s exceptional circumstances like what happened recently, Red Bull never re-promotes one of its drivers which means that Lawson’s options are Racing Bulls or elsewhere.
What makes it tricky is that, while F1 is now seeing the best of the Kiwi who is ninth in the standings with a career-best 59 points, Racing Bulls is the leader of the midfield. Yet it is a squad that nobody wants to stay at, so if he were to leave for Haas, he’d be going down the pecking order.
But with Nikola Tsolov - second in the F2 standings - waiting in the wings, with Lawson’s team-mate being the impressive teenage rookie Arvid Lindblad, Red Bull has a decision to make. It is likely that Lawson will remain for 2027 before analysing what his options are, but he could jump the gun and decide that replacing Ocon at Haas is his best bet for the long term.
Rafael Camara
 |
| Getty |
Despite everything that’s been mentioned, it’s hard not to see Ocon’s replacement being the current F2 leader Rafael Camara. The 21-year-old has recently emerged as the clear favourite for that seat - and it’s easy to see why, with the Brazilian atop of the F2 standings, following up his F3 title-winning campaign in fine fashion.
And unlike Fornaroli, Camara also took the F3 title in his rookie season while the Italian did it as a sophomore, finishing 11th the season prior. So on raw talent, Camara arguably edges it, having won titles at every level and in 2026 he looks set to make it three on the bounce after taking the 2024 Formula Regional European Championship.
This has very much been a breakthrough year for him though and qualifying is where he’s impressed the most, taking five poles, which is the most for a rookie since Piastri achieved that same amount in 2021. Camara could therefore surpass the now nine-time grand prix winner with two rounds left - Qatar and Abu Dhabi - in the current season where, should they go ahead amid the Middle Eastern conflict, the Invicta driver will arrive with a seven-point cushion over Tsolov.
Camara has shown immense capabilities to adapt to a new category right away - in F3 he took pole in four of the opening five rounds - and that is obviously something that’s needed for F1, particularly when he’s yet to appear in a practice outing.
What also gives him the edge over Fornaroli is that the Brazilian is an academy graduate of Ferrari - Haas’ current engine supplier - likewise with Bearman - and Ferrari is known to be keen for Camara to slot in alongside its other junior. The youngster is also understood to have impressed mightily on a recent TPC test in Portimao.
- Ed Hardy
No comments:
Post a Comment