Ocon Issues a Thank You Message and Says Nothing About the Reasons

Esteban Ocon posted a message on Tuesday, his first since Haas dropped him during the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend. He thanked people for their messages, said their support means a great deal, and gave no account at all of what ended his season. The post carried a photograph of him as a child in a kart.

Haas has not explained the decision publicly and Ayao Komatsu has refused to give the full story. Ocon’s only earlier statement denied a report that a disagreement had turned physical. He had been told before Mexico that he would not be retained for 2027, with Camara announced as his replacement ahead of that race and reserve driver Hirakawa completing the weekend in his car.

A couple of team principals weighed in during the Brazilian weekend. Toto Wolff, who is still involved in Ocon’s management, said a team principal has to decide when enough is enough and that is what Komatsu did. Fred Vasseur, who helped Ocon reach Formula 1 in the first place, refused to speculate about what had happened.

At 30, with one Grand Prix win at the Hungaroring in 2021, Ocon has had a varied career that started at Manor in 2016 and took in Force India, Renault, Alpine and Haas. Hirakawa, the reserve who took the car in Mexico, scored a point there after penalties were applied to drivers ahead of him, and that remains the only point Haas has managed since.

Ocon has no seat for 2027, and his message said his love for the sport remains as strong as ever, which is as close as he has come to addressing his own future. There are few seats left for next year and most are spoken for, which is what makes the timing awkward for a driver with 10 seasons behind him. He spent the Sao Paulo weekend away from the paddock while his replacement made a debut in the car that had been his, finishing 20th in a wet race.

The practical question now is what a driver in that position does with the winter. Teams finalise line-ups long before February, and the reserve and simulator roles that bridge a gap are also taken early, which is why the silence from Haas about the reasons matters more to Ocon than it does to anyone else.