Camara Waits for Confirmation of His Las Vegas Future

Rafael Camara was confirmed only for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, and Haas has yet to announce who drives that car in Las Vegas. The Brazilian said discussions are under way and made no attempt to pretend he knows the outcome. “I don’t know,” he said when asked about the rest of the season, adding that there would be a lot of things to discuss after the weekend and that he would be happy with whatever was decided.

The debut was hard work. He had pace early at Interlagos and lost it as the race went on, finishing 20th and two laps down in an afternoon that began and ended in the rain with a long dry spell in between. He also picked up a penalty from the stewards after they looked into an incident with Charles Leclerc.

Camara currently tops the Formula 2 points table, and the two remaining rounds of that series are now confirmed for Qatar and Abu Dhabi, where it accompanies Formula 1. There is no Formula 2 race in Las Vegas, which makes it the only weekend on which the two commitments do not clash. Reporting before the calendar was finalised suggested he was unlikely to return to the feeder series, which would mean missing the last two rounds of a championship he is leading.

For Haas there is another reason to want continuity. The team is in a straight fight with Audi for seventh in the constructors’ championship, holding 31 points to Audi’s 28 with three rounds still to run, and every position matters when the prize pot is split. Ryo Hirakawa, who replaced Esteban Ocon in Mexico and scored on his debut, is the alternative, and the team has not said which way it will go.

Camara is 21, came through the Ferrari academy and had already been announced as a Haas race driver for 2027 before any of this happened. Ocon’s early exit simply moved his debut forward by four rounds. He is the 34th Brazilian to start a Grand Prix, and he made that start in front of a home crowd, with a promising practice showing that ended two laps down. Whatever Haas decides, the opening chapter of his Formula 1 career is already written, and the Brazilian classification has the detail of it.