Esteban Ocon will drive for Haas in 2025 after securing his Formulation 1 future with a multi-year deal.
The 27-year-old and Alpine mutually agreed to half methods on the finish of the 2024 season after the Frenchman had spent 5 seasons with the Enstone squad.
Ocon will probably be team-mate at Haas to Britain’s Oliver Bearman, the 19-year-old whose multi-year cope with the crew was introduced on the eve of the British Grand Prix, and is reunited with crew principal Ayao Komatsu, who was engineer for the Frenchman’s first F1 check with Lotus in 2014.
“I am thrilled to embark on this new chapter in my Formula 1 career and join MoneyGram Haas F1 Team from the start of the 2025 season,” Ocon stated.
“I will be becoming a member of a really bold racing crew, whose spirit, work ethic, and plain upward trajectory has actually impressed me.
“On a extra private be aware, I am very glad to be working with Ayao once more, as he is been part of my debut once I first stepped right into a Formulation 1 automotive throughout my Lotus Junior days greater than 10 years in the past.
“MoneyGram Haas F1 Team has exciting plans and clear targets for the future, and I’m very much looking forward to working with everyone in Kannapolis, Banbury and Maranello, and being part of this great project.”
Ocon’s arrival means Haas will discipline an all-new driver line-up in 2025. Nico Hulkenberg has already signed for Audi-backed Sauber, however Kevin Magnussen is now presently and not using a drive and his F1 future seems in main doubt.
Magnussen has pushed for Haas for seven seasons throughout two spells.
Haas are having fun with a much-improved 2024 season and presently sit seventh within the Constructors’ Championship on 27 factors and the American-owned crew had beforehand introduced that they had prolonged their long-standing Ferrari engine partnership to 2028.
“I’m delighted we’ve secured Esteban Ocon’s services for MoneyGram Haas F1 Team,” Komatsu stated. “I’ve clearly been conscious of his abilities for a very long time and our private historical past dates again to Esteban’s maiden run in a Formulation 1 automotive.
“He displayed his talents back then coming off the back of strong performances in the junior categories – he’d just won the 2014 European Formula 3 Championship. Esteban’s gone on to become an established talent in Formula 1 and, of course, a Grand Prix winner.
“It was very important we had a driver with expertise in beside Oliver Bearman subsequent 12 months, however Esteban’s solely 27 – he is nonetheless younger with loads to show as properly. I believe we now have a hungry, dynamic driver pairing and I stay up for welcoming Esteban into MoneyGram Haas F1 Workforce for 2025.”
Five seats – one apiece at Mercedes, RB, Alpine, Williams and Sauber – remain open on the 2025 grid, although uncertainty remains over Sergio Perez’s Red Bull future.
Will Ocon show a ‘troublesome team-mate’ for Bearman?
Sky Sports activities Information reporter Craig Slater on Esteban Ocon’s transfer to Haas:
“The numerous side, from a British perspective, is Ocon will associate British teenager Oliver Bearman, who enters his debut season with Haas subsequent 12 months.
“Ocon does have a bit of a reputation for being a difficult team-mate to get along with. One of the reasons, perhaps, he is leaving Alpine is that he and Pierre Gasly did not get along particularly well and had a number of flashpoints – including most recently at the Monaco Grand Prix. But he had conflict, also, before with Fernado Alonso.
“Perhaps it is slightly little bit of an undeserved fame. Ocon has not had it simple stepping into Formulation 1; his household are of very regular means, he is needed to combat to get to the top of motorsport and needed to endure a season outwith the game when Lance Stroll got here into Racing Level to interchange him.
“The significant thing for Haas is that, for the first time, they have a winner on their books. Ocon won the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix and, as he says himself, they are a team on an upwards trajectory.”
The motion continues this weekend with the ultimate race earlier than F1’s summer season break, the Belgian Grand Prix. You’ll be able to watch each session from Spa-Francorchamps stay on Sky Sports activities F1.