The Haas Formula 1 team announced on Thursday that it has signed Esteban Ocon as a driver.
Haas said this signed a multi-year contract with Ocon, which will see the young Frenchman start driving for the American team in 2025.
The news doesn’t come as a huge surprise, as Ocon previously worked with Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu and had been rumored to have a place at the team since his current employer, Alpine, announced in June that he would let it drop after 2024. Komatsu was Ocon’s race engineer during a test with Lotus in 2014.
Alpine has not announced a replacement for Ocon, although team principal Bruno Famin previously mentioned Mick Schumacher, son of F1 legend Michael Schumacher and current Mercedes-Benz AMG reserve driver, as a replacement. potential pilot for the squadron.
At Haas, Ocon will replace Kevin Magnussen which the team announced last week would be leaving the roster after 2024. Magnussen intends to stay in F1 but has not announced any future plans.
Haas’ other driver in 2024 is Nico Hülkenberg, who announced in April that he will leave the team after the current season to join Sauber, which will become Audi in 2026.
In early July, Haas named Oliver Bearman as Hülkenberg’s replacement. The promising driver currently serves as a reserve for Ferrari, a team with close ties to Haas, including supplying power units.
Ocon first entered F1 in 2016 as a driver for Manor. He joined Force India the following year and after a one-year hiatus in 2019 where he served as Mercedes’ reserve driver, he joined Renault in 2020 and remained with the team after it was renamed Alpine in 2021. He is the most successful driver to join Haas thanks to his sole victory, which came at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix.