Esteban Ocon’s F1 career may be ending, but his story is one of success

There’s really not much reason to think otherwise: it looks increasingly likely that this could be the end of Esteban Ocon’s active Formula 1 career. A career blessed with plenty of highlights, a handful of podiums and a victory scored behind the wheel of a car that wasn’t capable of winning on merit.

He made a lot of the opportunities that came his way – not just on the track, but throughout his career. And even if it ends now, that career has already become far more than anyone could reasonably have expected, given where he started.

There aren’t many stories like his in modern F1, with kids from modest backgrounds – without wealthy families or rich sponsors behind them from an early age – reaching the pinnacle of motorsport, let alone achieving what Ocon has managed.

But his abrupt departure from Haas could well mark the end of that chapter of his racing career. Things could change. He could still return, because he’s still one of the best drivers in the world. It’s just very difficult to see how right now.

It’s almost impossible to imagine Ocon on the grid when the 2027 season begins in Bahrain – if it begins in Bahrain – with most seats already taken and those potentially still available having plenty of candidates queuing up for them. And there’s little reason to believe he’d suddenly jump ahead of the others.

There’s still a question mark over Cadillac’s second seat. But there’s Colton Herta, with his American passport, and Yuki Tsunoda as another possible option. Liam Lawson’s future hasn’t been confirmed either, but Red Bull isn’t suddenly going to add a 30-year-old Frenchman to the pool of candidates for its junior team. That’s essentially a fight between Lawson and 19-year-old Bulgarian Nikola Tsolov.

What’s more likely is that Ocon would once again have to find a place on the substitutes’ bench, waiting for an opportunity until somebody slips in the shower.

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Alex Bierens de Haan / LAT Images via Getty Images

And there are plenty of examples of drivers who have eventually made it back after choosing that route. Even on the current grid, Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg are examples. Ocon himself belongs in that group: he returned to racing with Renault in 2020 after spending a year on the sidelines as Mercedes’ reserve driver.

But, as uncomfortable as the truth may be, the way Ocon’s 2026 season ended so suddenly makes the prospect of a comeback even less likely than it would have been had he simply finished the year with Haas.

There’s no point speculating about what actually happened between him and the team. And it would be wrong to give more visibility to the rumours flying around.

What we do know is that something happened during the Mexico Grand Prix weekend. And whatever it was, it was enough for Haas to take Ocon out of the car and hand it to Ryo Hirakawa, a driver with no previous F1 starts, who made his grand prix debut at the age of 32 – something we hadn’t seen since Andre Lotterer jumped into a Caterham at Spa in 2014.

Whatever happened, it was serious enough not only for Haas to sideline him for the weekend, but also to decide that he wouldn’t race for the team again this season.

Yes, perhaps the situation was also convenient for Haas. It now has an opportunity to give Rafael Camara, its future driver, some actual race experience. That will certainly be useful for the Brazilian, but also for the team, which can identify areas to work on, get to know him better and benefit from all the other things that come with running a young driver in a grand prix.

But Haas wouldn’t have shown Ocon the door just for that.

When a driver disagrees with his team, it’s certainly not ideal. When it gets to the point where the team takes him out of the car, it’s worse. And when the driver in question is Esteban Ocon, it’s difficult not to talk about his reputation and see Mexico 2026 as another stain on it.

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

Reputation is a tricky thing.

It’s often formed according to its own rules, through freak circumstances and, nowadays, through the mystery of social media algorithms. When there’s something to hate, the modern world provides more than enough tools to multiply the effect, exaggerate it beyond recognition and turn the whole thing into a farce.

But reputation exists. And Ocon has a reputation for being a somewhat difficult character to work with.

After all, his previous spell with a team ended in a remarkably similar way, with Alpine asking him to vacate his cockpit before the end of the 2024 season.

And then there’s the whole outcry over his collisions with team-mates.

It’s not actually as bad as the social media hate suggests, and many of those incidents weren’t even his fault. If you go back and look at the incidents themselves, the picture isn’t nearly as clear as the usual social media reaction would have you believe.

But it is what it is. And it’s also true that anyone considering Ocon as a future driver will inevitably have that preconception about him – however fair or unfair it may be.

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team, Laura Mueller, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

There’s a puzzling disconnect between that image and the person we see in interviews.

Believe it or not, Esteban Ocon is one of the nicest people in the F1 paddock to talk to. Friendly, chatty, very polite. Yet there are enough people who would tell you that he can be difficult to deal with at times.

We talked about it when I interviewed him for GP Racing magazine a couple of years ago. We’d visited him at his training centre in the south of France and then had a long conversation in the car on his way home to Geneva.

I told him that a sporting director from an F1 team had once described Ocon to me as one of the most brutal guys when it came to discussions in the stewards’ room.

I asked whether he thought that was part of his character. And he agreed that he understood what people might be talking about.

“But yeah, when there’s something that has to be said, especially in Formula 1, it has to be said,” he told me back then. “We have no time to waste here. So, it’s important to be straightforward. Maybe I’m too straightforward at times, but well… I’m not going to let anything go after I’ve worked so hard to get where I am. You see how many hours I put in every day here – and I don’t want to get, you know, eaten alive by doesn’t matter who it is, be it some team manager, team principal, or a world champion.”

And we talked about how that part of his character was perhaps formed in the early days of his career, when his future depended not only on results but also on his ability to stand his ground and be as pushy as necessary to secure support.

Esteban Ocon, Alpine F1, celebrates on the podium

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

His family had sold their house to fund his karting career, but they simply couldn’t provide enough money for him to progress through the junior formulas.

He needed to be a fighter, because nothing was handed to him.

And you’ve got to admire that – just as you’ve got to admire his whole journey.

“That’s probably the right way to put it: I had the weight of my family on my shoulders, from a very young age,” he said. “And I’m not saying it to seek pity: it was worth trying and we succeeded to end up where we wanted to be – and now everything is good. But it’s clear that I had to deal with these sorts of pressures, I had to be tough when it mattered, and I had to be heard when people were not necessarily listening, or weren’t convinced. And, you know, to make these businessmen, investors listen to you, when you’re 13 or 14, and really pay attention, is not easy.”

It’s probably not right to look at this as though it has now become a problem for him in Formula 1. Because he made it this far thanks to being who he is. And a decade-long career at the pinnacle of motorsport, with a grand prix victory to his name, is something nobody will ever take away from him.

As sad as it may be, perhaps that’s simply all there was for Ocon in Formula 1.

There’s a certain irony in the fact that what could turn out to have been Ocon’s final F1 weekend as a race driver was also the weekend Kimi Antonelli won the world championship with Mercedes.

Because Ocon was once Toto Wolff’s favourite kid, too. Wolff even said it was only a matter of time before Esteban would drive for the Silver Arrows.

It was never meant to be. And perhaps there was a reason for that, too.

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Chris Graythen / Getty Images

Ocon is undeniably fast. You don’t have a 10-year career in F1 without being fast, let alone win a grand prix. But Formula 1 is also Formula 1. And only the absolute best, with the complete package required to reach championship level, actually get there.

There’s no denying that, in terms of pure speed, there are far more drivers capable of winning a world championship than there are actual world champions. There’s luck. There are circumstances, which play a huge role in how careers develop. And some of those things simply didn’t fall into place for Ocon. Or perhaps his complete package wasn’t convincing enough at the right moments – for Wolff, for example, to put him in a Mercedes when the opportunity arose.

After all, Ocon was available when Lewis Hamilton decided to leave for Ferrari. But by then, Toto already had a new favourite kid.

And he was ultimately proven right.

Whatever happens next, even if Ocon never finds his way back onto the grid, there’s no reason to look back at his career with pity or regret. Because the career he’s had is one that thousands of drivers would give almost anything to have. It’s a bit sad – and even silly – that it could end like this. But it’s certainly not what he deserves to be judged on.

And also…

As difficult as it looks now, even if it seems impossible, we’re talking about someone who’s already made an impossible dream come true: a kid from a small French town, whose dad was a mechanic, making it all the way to F1.

Don’t count him out just yet.

And whatever happens next, he deserves to be praised for what he’s already achieved.

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– The Motorsport.com Team