Haas Replaced Esteban Ocon With the Reserve Who Already Knew His Car
Hirakawa, 32, drove Ocon's car in first practice on Friday, then took it for the rest of the Mexico City weekend. Haas said the change was not due to illness and said nothing else.
“We’ve swapped the high fuel run to medium because Ollie’s [tyre] appearance is not great,” race engineer Laura Mueller told Esteban Ocon during second practice on Friday in Mexico City. “Still doing soft, right?” Ocon asked. Mueller answered: “No, we have to do medium.” Ocon replied: “No, no, I wanted the soft, like, don’t do that to me. Come on.”
Ocon ran the medium-tyre stint anyway and finished the session 13th, one place ahead of his Haas team-mate Ollie Bearman. The Race reported that he kept his helmet on as he walked back to the team’s hospitality unit after the session, visibly dissatisfied. That was the last time Ocon was heard from in the car all weekend.
Haas announced the change on Saturday morning. “TGR Haas F1 Team reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa will replace Esteban Ocon for the remainder of the weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix, Saturday 31 October – Sunday 1 November,” the team said. “No further statements will be made at this time.” A team spokesman later added only that the replacement was not due to illness. The FIA confirmed the change, Reuters reported. The statement gave no reason and thanked nobody. It named no driver for the next race.
Hirakawa is 32. The race will be Ryo Hirakawa’s F1 debut. He is a two-time World Endurance Championship winner with Toyota Gazoo Racing in 2022 and 2023, and he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2022 alongside Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley. Much of his career was spent in Japan, where he won the Super GT GT500 title in 2017, and he first drove a Formula 1 car in a private McLaren test at Barcelona in October 2023. Haas signed him as its official reserve driver in April 2025, after he had held the same role at Alpine, as part of the technical partnership between Haas and Toyota. The Race notes he will become the oldest Formula 1 debutant since André Lotterer, also 32, drove for Caterham at the Belgian Grand Prix in 2014.
Hirakawa had already driven Ocon’s car on Friday morning. Formula 1’s rules require each team to give two first-practice sessions per car to a driver who has started no more than two Grands Prix. Ten of the 11 teams used the Mexico City Grand Prix opening session to meet that requirement. Ferrari was the only team to run both regular drivers. Hirakawa sampled the hard and medium tyres in the 60-minute session, set a fastest lap of 1:19.982, finished 15th and banked 30 laps. Bearman, on the same tyre selection, lapped in 1:19.412 for ninth.
Bearman’s car needed a power-unit replacement between the sessions, Haas said, and the team still sent both cars out on time for the afternoon. Ocon, back in the car he had given up that morning, ran mediums before switching to softs and posted 1:18.774 for 13th, 0.075 seconds ahead of Bearman in 14th on the same soft tyre. Team principal Ayao Komatsu said Hirakawa and Bearman had both looked “very comfortable” in the morning session, and that Hirakawa’s feedback had confirmed what the regular drivers had been saying about the car’s consistency, predictability and stability. Ocon had 32 laps all day, all of them in the second session.
Haas’s practice notes that evening carried Ocon’s account of Friday. “It’s always challenging when you miss out on a session, but Ryo did a good job and collected some valuable data,” he said. “I still don’t feel super comfortable in the car, so there will be some adjustments to make and some work to be done overnight ahead of FP3 and Quali tomorrow.” Hirakawa, in the same notes, thanked the team, said he was happy with the step in performance since his previous outing in Budapest, and added: “hopefully we can score good points on Sunday.”
“I hate that this is allowed. His time in F1 is limited and you take that away from him,” nlocke64 wrote on Threads under F1’s post. Dansmithcreates, replying under Haas’s post on Threads, guessed at the one piece of evidence Haas had left in public: “my guess: tire choice questioning during P2 (over the radio) had a bit to do with it.” Chase A. Larson, on Facebook under Haas’s post, asked the question the Alpine parallel invites: “Ocon dropped again before the season ends? That would be wild.” The three posts treat the radio exchange and the earlier exit as the explanation. Haas’s statement offers neither. The radio exchange shows a driver disagreeing about a tyre. It does not show a decision, and Haas has not said the two were connected.
Ocon had already announced, on 30 September, that his time with Haas would end after the 2026 season. “I leave this project with my head held high and proud of my performances in what were not always the easiest of circumstances for various reasons and factors outside of my control,” he wrote, adding: “I am still motivated. I am still hungry. This is absolutely not the end of my Formula 1 career.” Komatsu thanked him then, saying: “I’d like to thank Esteban for everything he’s contributed to the team since joining us in 2025.” Bearman has 23 championship points this season to Ocon’s seven. Haas confirmed in mid-October that Rafael Camara, a Formula 2 driver, had signed a multi-year deal to replace Ocon in 2027.
“BWT Alpine Formula One Team announces that reserve driver Jack Doohan will race in the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in place of Esteban Ocon,” Alpine said on 2 December 2024. “The change allows Esteban to be released to Haas to drive in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi.” The team added: “The team would like to thank Esteban for his time at the team and he will remain part of the team’s history achieving the first win for Alpine in Formula 1. We wish Esteban the best for the future.”
Haas ran Camara, Doohan, Hirakawa and McLaren junior Leonardo Fornaroli in previous cars at Portimão in August. Camara was the quickest, quicker even than Bearman’s reference work, The Race reported, with Hirakawa second. Doohan, who replaced Ocon at Alpine in Abu Dhabi in 2024, signed as a Haas reserve driver in February 2026, joining Hirakawa in the role. Haas therefore had two reserves in Mexico. It picked the one who had spent Friday morning in Ocon’s car, learning the circuit’s low grip and the updated car, while Ocon spent the afternoon catching up.
The Race reported Haas was making no comment on its line-up for the next race, in Brazil. Doohan remains a reserve alongside Hirakawa. Hirakawa’s Friday laps were his third practice outing of the 2026 season in the VF-26, after Austria and Hungary, and he had been embedded with Haas since April 2025, combining the reserve role with his full-time Toyota endurance drive.
A year earlier, at the same circuit, Haas’s practice notes recorded Hirakawa in the other seat. He drove Bearman’s car in first practice in Mexico in 2025, set 1:20.073 for 16th and completed 27 laps, in his first visit to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Ocon, in the same session, set 1:19.038 for seventh. This year Hirakawa was given Ocon’s car instead.
