Esteban Ocon dropped by Haas as tensions erupt, Jack Doohan’s shock outside chance at Formula 1 revival, driver market, silly season, Lewis Hamilton takes first Ferrari pole, Oscar Piastri’s 13th place unpacked on difficult McLaren weekend

The only way the championship fight can make it to Sao Paulo next weekend is if Lewis Hamilton or George Russell wins the race.

Hamilton will start from pole with Russell alongside him on the front row.

It would be a tantalising set-up if there were any real risk of Antonelli finishing outside the points.

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If Hamilton wins, 10th will do. If Russell wins, ninth would be enough.

Antonelli will start a comfortable fourth — and given his race pace tends to be better than his already formidable qualifying pace, it’s not out of the question that he manoeuvres himself onto the podium or even into a winning position.

“It hasn’t been the easiest weekend, to be fair,” the presumptive champion told Sky Sports.

“The thought of what could happen is there. Definitely I’m a bit more tense than usual. Definitely I don’t feel as relaxed.

“But I’ll try to have a good sleep tonight and focus on tomorrow.”

It’ll be made that much easier after McLaren dealt itself out of the battle for pole, with Lando Norris qualifying sixth and Oscar Piastri a devastating 13th.

But the championship permutations can wait until race day.

Saturday in Mexico started with a bombshell of a completely different variety.

ESTEBAN OGONE AS HAAS SWINGS THE AXE

Haas announced early on Saturday, before the start of final practice, that Esteban Ocon would be removed from his car for the rest of the weekend.

Ryō Hirakawa, the team’s Toyota-backed reserve driver, has replaced him for the Mexico City Grand Prix.

No explanation was given — and team principal Ayao Komatsu was determined to give nothing away beyond Ocon’s absence not being due to illness.

“I’m sorry, I can’t go into any details,” he told Sky Sports during FP3.

“Honestly, the only thing I can say is we are focused on what’s in front of us and getting Ryo in the best shape for qualifying.

“I’m just focusing on this session just now.”

It’s led to speculation — in the absence of any official word from the team — that this is the end of Ocon’s season.

Given he’s without a drive next year, FP2 may well have been his last Formula 1 session, completed in quite unceremonious fashion.

Unclear is why Haas has the drastic call to bench the Frenchman, which will almost certainly cost it points in the battle to hold seventh place in the championship.

Some has drawn attention to a disagreement he had with his engineer about tyre choice in FP2 for his long run, switching from softs to mediums. Despite being seemingly routine, it prompted an unusually impassioned protest from Ocon, and reports suggest he remained unhappy in the paddock, even keeping his helmet on as he returned to the Haas office — the universal sign that a driver doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

There were some rumours in the media that disagreements over the practice program escalated wildly, with French paper L’Equipe reporting things may have got physical.

Ocon took to social media to deny that report.

“Last night, a difference in viewpoints led to a discussion with the parties involved,” he said. “Whilst I acknowledge that this took place, I categorically reject any reports or allegations suggesting that any form of physical violence was used to resolve any differences of any nature.”

Perhaps whatever robust disagreements did take place were the straw the broke the camel’s back amid a situation that was becoming more tense.

Ocon’s internal style can be combative. He would describe it as blunt and straightforward, but reports suggest that some inside Haas have felt this characteristic has manifested in an unwillingness to take responsibility for his shortcomings and instead blame the car or the team for his own problems — notwithstanding Haas has been open about the car’s issues.

The Frenchman has also been punchy since being told by the team he’d be dropped next year, strongly believing he’s good enough still to be in F1. Though understandable, perhaps the way he’s carrying himself internally has caused additional friction.

Even so, this breakdown is spectacular considering Ocon and Komatsu have both insisted repeatedly that their relationship is good — in fact Komatsu had been key to bringing Ocon to the team in the first place.

Then again, this would remarkably be the second time Ocon had had his contract ended early by a team. He was pushed out of his Alpine seat with one race to spare at the end of 2024, when Jack Doohan replaced him at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

That decision was indicative of a working relationship that had reportedly become increasingly difficult, though at least Alpine could argue it was giving Doohan a head start on what was to be a full-time campaign in 2025.

Putting Hirakawa in the car would appear to make clear that this decision has come suddenly.

WHO IS HIRAKAWA — AND WILL HE RACE FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON?

At 32 years old, Hirakawa will be the oldest driver to make his Formula 1 debut in more than a decade — since Andre Lotterer started the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix for Caterham.

Unsurprisingly, his qualifying result was on paper unspectacular — though he avoided last on the grid, ending the session 19th ahead of both Cadillac drivers and Lance Stroll.

But don’t take that as a sign of a lack of skill.

Hirakawa is a sports car ace, with two World Endurance Championship titles — and he’s leading this year’s WEC standings too — and a championship in Japan’s Super GT series. He’s also a winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

He’s been floating around Formula 1 for a few years now thanks to his Toyota backing. Toyota briefly had a technical relationship with McLaren but is now the Haas title sponsor. One of the perks of that sponsorship is the chance to put its best drivers, like Hirakawa, into the F1 environment.

He’s racked up nine hours of free practice since 2024 along with multiple private tests. In that time he’s proved adaptable enough that he became a serious contender for Ocon’s seat next season.

Hirakawa was one of four drivers to get a private test with Haas this year as part of a shootout for the seat, along with Jack Doohan and Leonardo Fornaroli, though he was ultimately defeated by Rafael Câmara, the Ferrari-backed Brazilian.

He remains the team’s reserve driver, which is why he’s in the car this weekend.

What happens next weekend in Brazil, however, remains unclear — another thing Haas is currently unwilling to be drawn on.

The complication for Hirakawa is that next weekend is the title-deciding final WEC round in Monza. He’s almost certainly going to be unavailable.

Picking Câmara for his Formula 1 debut at his home race appears to be a no-brainer.

However, Câmara would need to be released by Ferrari, where he’s currently a reserve driver — and he is scheduled to replace Lewis Hamilton for FP1 in Sao Paulo and then Charles Leclerc at one other venue, though Ferrari would presumably field fellow reserve Dino Beganovic instead.

But Brazilian journalist Julianne Cerasoli reported before qualifying that Ferrari had not received any request from Haas for Câmara’s release.

If neither Hirakawa nor Câmara is available, Haas’s other reserve driver is Jack Doohan.

The Aussie would be the sensible choice, avoiding the need to chop and change drivers to avoid scheduling conflicts.

Doohan was beaten in the four-driver shootout, but he was quick, and he obviously has F1 experience, albeit under previous regulations.

F1 chances are extremely rare and — for a driver on the outer — extremely valuable.

You can bet Doohan is pushing to have a chance if the situation were to arise.

WHAT HAPPENED TO PIASTRI?

Despite his misleading Friday practice time, Piastri had been having an unexpectedly good weekend up until Q2.

He had been less than 0.2s off the pace in final practice, and in Q1 he was fourth fastest overall.

The top four teams often try to avoid using two new tyres in Q2 to ensure they have two fresh sets for the pole shootout. That means the drivers usually complete one of their two Q2 laps with a used set.

There are two ways to do it.

You can use the fresh set first and then a used set afterwards, giving a driver a chance to bank a competitive time and then, if necessary, have a second crack, knowing that a top-four car will probably make Q3 even on an old set.

Alternatively, you can use save the fresher ones for the end, when the track is grippier, therefore giving better bang for buck.

McLaren used the second strategy.

The team would have been surprised to see neither driver was anywhere near quick enough to make it through to Q3. It put pressure on both to deliver with their final lap.

Norris set the fastest lap of the session up to that point, while Piastri ended up eliminated in 13th.

“We had plenty of pace,” he said, but then added: “(With the new tyres, I barely improved. That was the biggest issue.

“In normal circumstances we should have been plenty comfortable enough, and I don’t know what changed on that new set of tyres, but I just had no grip at all.”

The last time he failed to make Q3? Mexico in 2024.

The result cements Mexico City as by far Piastri’s weakest circuit. He has a career-low average qualifying result of 11.3 and a career-worst 0.866s average deficit to Norris at this venue.

But team boss Andrea Stella put the blame on the team, not the driver.

It wasn’t the tyre strategy. It was the car, which is getting seemingly more unwieldy with every race.

“The car, though, at some stage exhibited the inconsistencies that we see this year with the MCL40,” he told Sky Sports. “This caught Oscar in Q2 and Lando in Q3.”

Norris also hit a brick wall in Q3, where his fastest time was slower than his best Q2 time.

“At some stage when the drivers try to push that little bit more than ideal, because they feel this grip is available, actually the grip disappears,” Stella continued.

“This is a weird behaviour. It makes the life of the drivers very difficult.

“We want to look at how we can put Oscar in a condition to recover positions. Certainly he deserves to finish in the points, and high in the points. That’s the main focus for today.”

In 2024 he recovered from 17th to eighth. In 2023 Norris recovered from 19th to fifth.

From 13th, decent points should be on the table, but given how competitive the leading group is, anything higher than eighth would be surprising.

HAMILTON GETS HISTORIC FIRST POLE — BUT CAN HE WIN THE RACE?

Lewis Hamilton, already the most prolific pole-getter in Formula 1 history, has extended his record for the first time since the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix.

It’s his first as a Ferrari driver and his first pole after his 40th birthday, having turned 41 years old in January.

He’s the oldest driver to take pole since 42-year-old Mario Andretti at the 1982 Italian Grand Prix, and it makes him the fifth oldest pole-getter in history, behind Giuseppe Farina (47 years old), Juan Manuel Fangio (46 years old), Jack Brabham (44 years old) and Andretti.

“When there’s a will, there’s a way,” Hamilton said. “It’s all in the mind, honestly, for all of us.

“I love what I do, and that love has not gone. I wake up every day thinking about it. I dream about it.

“I’ve got this amazing support around the world. These guys keep me going. I hope they’re happy with that today and I hope that I can deliver for them tomorrow.”

Race day is now the question.

Pole position is a difficult place to start in Mexico, where the run from pole position to the first braking zone is 830 metres, the longest on the calendar.

It leaves the pole-getter very vulnerable, especially to the driver starting on the clean side of the grid directly behind.

Fortunately for Ferrari, that driver is Charles Leclerc.

Qualifying first and third is arguably the best result for a team. With Russell needing to focus on getting a good launch from the dusty side of the road, Hamilton and Leclerc have a chance to lock the Mercedes driver out of the top two and manage the pace themselves.

With overheating a key limitation in Mexico, the damage done to a race by lapping in the hot, dirty air of a leading car can be decisive.

Whoever exits the first chicane with the lead, then, has a very good chance to winning the race.

Extremely rare, though, is it that the field tackles the first chicane without some sort of incident.

And while having two Ferrari drivers in the mix is a blessing for the team, given Hamilton and Leclerc’s history of getting their elbows out while racing each other, this might also be a curse.

These will be a high-pressure 830 metres.