Why Esteban Ocon should and shouldn't make F1 return after Haas chop

That Esteban Ocon will leave Haas at the end of the 2026 season is no great surprise, with the Frenchman and the team coordinating their statements on Wednesday morning. 

After two seasons, the one-time grand prix winner will leave the squad, but enters what he called "free agency" in Azerbaijan at an uncertain time. 

Ocon may re-appear on the grid in the future, but one thing is certain. He will not be racing in F1 in 2027, in a full-time capacity at least.

With the news that Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll are staying on at Aston Martin for 2027, it reduced the number of available seats for 2027 to six across three teams. 

One of these teams was Haas itself, which has just let Ocon go so he is not going to turn up there, which leaves Mercedes and Racing Bulls as the only places for a race seat.

Ocon, once the next cab off the Mercedes rank, will not be displacing George Russell and certainly won't be taking over the tenancy rights of the cockpit of the likely reigning world champion going into 2027 in Kimi Antonelli. 

He has a next-to-zero chance of arriving at Racing Bulls, which already has its own 'three into two doesn't go' conundrum with incumbents Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad trying to fend off F2 protege and title contender Nikola Tsolov.

The best Ocon can hope for is to secure a third and reserve driver role with a team in 2027 with eyes on returning to the grid for 2028. As a capable, dependable hand, should any team require an injury or ban substitute in 2027, a driver with over 200 grands prix and experience of the 2026 power units would be an ideal choice.

This then puts Ocon firmly in the shop window for a full-time 2028 return - but has he done enough to warrant that or is his F1 career coming to a close?

Why Ocon's time is over

Ocon is not the worst driver in F1, but neither is he an absolute world-beater who makes the case for dropping him one the bosses only briefly entertain. 

He is a perfectly capable midfield F1 driver, capable of bagging decent results on his day, but his day has been relatively few and far between. 

As an established driver with a grand prix win, four podiums, and as of the 2026 Azerbaijan GP, 195 starts. He is no rookie and has driven for three teams across a variety of regulations. He is not a mug. 

With that level of experience, he should be the undisputed Haas team leader, comfortably leading his team in the midfield and performing well in the head-to-heads against his team-mate, a bit like old rival Pierre Gasly is at Alpine. There, there is no doubt about who the senior driver is. 

But at Haas, Oliver Bearman has shown himself to certainly have Ocon's number. In qualifying in 2026, Bearman leads 10-5, with an average advantage of 0.206s, although Ocon does have the slightly better position of 14.7 to Bearman's 14.8. 

In races where both have finished, Bearman is ahead 8-5 and has scored 20 points to Ocon's seven thus far. 

At the absolute heart of the decision to drop Ocon is that he simply has not shown enough consistent performance to ensure Ayao Komatsu and Gene Haas seriously considered other options. He is a driver who does not bring a huge amount of sponsorship money, but this can be looked past if you are performing strongly and driving the team technically forward.

If you are not, as Ocon has found out, someone else will take your seat - with that someone believed to be either Ferrari F2 protege Rafael Camara or Haas's own third driver Jack Doohan - who both seriously impressed during recent TPC outings.

After nine-and-a-half seasons bouncing around the midfield and popping up with the odd podium or eye-catching drive, Ocon has essentially shown what he is. He is a known quantity, there are no surprises to him. After leaving Alpine in 2024 after falling out with management, Haas gave him another chance, with Komatsu personally determined to sign him. 

Ocon has, on occasion, rubbed up team-mates and management the wrong way - most famously with Alonso at the 2022 Sao Paulo GP and with Gasly and Alpine bosses in Monaco 2024. Whilst he would argue he is just being himself, sometimes, the wider F1 game needs to be recognised and played.

But if Haas then decides that you are not the answer to their questions, where do you go? As Ocon has found out, you fall off the grid. 

Why Ocon deserves another chance in F1

It is important to state that Ocon has not been able to showcase his true performance at Haas this term, and even in the second-half of 2025.

In 2025, he was struggling with the feel and bite of the brakes, before Haas, still one of the smallest operations on the grid, took a step backwards in the first year of the all-new regulations this season. 

As well as being out-developed, the team, and both Ocon and Bearman have struggled with parts inconsistency and have swapped parts between them in a bid to try to unlock any drop of performance.

It appears, however, that an upgrade at Monza, coinciding with the use of the new Ferrari ADUO power unit, has boosted the car back into points contention. 

Ocon finished eighth last time out in Azerbaijan, being pipped to equaling his best result since fifth in the 2025 Chinese GP by Lindblad by just 0.030s on the line, as Bearman was ninth. 

It proves that when the car is capable of scoring strong points, Ocon can deliver it. He also showed great awareness at Turn 1 on the safety car restart as Colapinto turned the braking zone into a bowling alley, scoring a strike against team-mate Gasly and McLaren's Lando Norris.

Ocon is not a driver who throws the car at the scenery often and is more than prepared to defend himself on-track, even going toe-to-toe with the wily operator that is Alonso when they were Alpine team-mates.

Over the final eight races of the 2026 season, he also has a powerful tool that others seeking a route onto the F1 grid do not have: he has a race seat.

Between now and the final lap in Abu Dhabi, in this new points-scoring Haas, Ocon has the potential to sell himself and put himself, blinking lights and all, in the shop window for a reserve role in 2027 and a full-time seat elsewhere for 2028. 

If he can best Bearman between now and the end of the campaign, he'll have a body of work to show potential suitors, and as the old adage goes, you are only as good as your last race. When it comes to 2028 silly season, that could be a very valuable pull factor for a team looking for a new driver - and a conversation Ocon should be in.