Hirakawa Waits Alongside Camara as Haas Leaves the Vegas Seat Open

As Esteban Ocon’s replacement in Mexico, Haas reserve Ryo Hirakawa stepped into the car halfway through the weekend, and a month ago he was on nobody’s radar. The Japanese driver came to single-seaters late, after more than a decade in sports cars and prototypes, and the outing was respectable enough that post-race penalties turned it into a points finish on debut.

The seat for Las Vegas is still open. Camara is in discussions about seeing out the season and Haas is expected to confirm its plans shortly; Hirakawa is the alternative, and the paddock reads the team as undecided while he waits for another opportunity.

The decision is not about pace alone. Camara leads the Formula 2 championship with two rounds to go, and those rounds now fall on the same weekends as Qatar and Abu Dhabi, which gives Haas a scheduling question as well as a sporting one. Las Vegas is the exception, because there is no clash at all.

There is also the matter of what the team is playing for. Haas is seventh in the constructors’ standings on 31 points to Audi’s 28, and the choice is between a rookie learning a street circuit in the dark and a driver who has raced in the United States and in endurance machinery for years. Hirakawa scored the last point Haas took, in a car he had not expected to drive that weekend.

Whatever the team decides, there is a deadline attached. The Las Vegas weekend begins on 20 November, cars and personnel move before that, and a driver has to be named to the FIA before any of it starts. Audi, meanwhile, has run Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto all season in the same cars, while Haas will field its third different driver in that seat in as many events. Continuity is worth something in a fight decided by three points, and it is the one thing Haas has not had since Mexico. Reporting from the paddock suggests the team is weighing exactly that against what Camara represents for 2027, which is the kind of decision a midfield team rarely gets to make twice in one season.