Haas has signed Ferrari-backed Formula 2 star Rafael Câmara to replace Esteban Ocon in 2027, extinguishing Australian Jack Doohan’s hopes of returning to the grid next year.
He will race alongside incumbent Oliver Bearman, though the Englishman, who is also on loan from Ferrari, has yet to be announced. Team boss Ayao Komatsu said confirmation will “come in due course”.
Câmara, 21 years old from Recife in Brazil, was one of five contenders for the drive after the team decided to part ways with the experienced Ocon, who started the season on thin ice after being beaten by rookie Bearman in 2025.
Doohan, who has been a Haas reserve driver this season, emerged late as a leading candidate, having impressed in a private test last month.
Fellow reserve driver Ryō Hirakawa, the sports car driver backed by title partner Toyota, was also in the mix, as was McLaren development driver and reigning Formula 2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli, both of whom also undertook private testing.
Former Red Bull Racing driver Yuki Tsunoda is also believed to have been in the frame, having been briefly considered as Ocon’s replacement as early as the end of last season before Haas committed the Frenchman for one more campaign.
The decision eventually boiled down to Câmara and Doohan, but the Brazilian won out for having been quicker in his test and the more complete package.
Câmara is leading the Formula 2 championship and is on track to repeat Oscar Piastri’s feat of winning three consecutive junior titles, having won last year’s F3 championship one year after being crowned in the Formula Regional European Championship.
He is also backed by Ferrari, with which Haas shares a close technical relationship, including as an engine customer.
“I always said we’re going to choose drivers by performance, and then through those evaluations Rafa just showed incredible speed and feel, so that was the fully overriding factor above everything else,” Haas principal Ayao Komatsu said, per Racer.
“We have a good relationship with Ferrari, but that just means that gives us the access to (Ferrari junior) drivers.
“Having that relationship with Ferrari gave us the chance to have access to Rafa, and then in the Portimao (test) , he was just simply outstanding.
“We really wanted to go for someone who’s got this natural speed and feeling, because that’s something you cannot teach.”
Speaking last month, before the decision had been made — and before Doohan’s test — Komatsu emphasised that commercial factors would come into play only if two drivers were equal in performance.
“If it’s within 0.1s, for instance — very, very close — then affiliation package does come into play for sure,” he said. “We really want two fast drivers because that’s the best way to grow this team.”
Confirmation of Haas’s line-up means only Racing Bulls is uncommitted for next season, though the Red Bull junior team is widely tipped to retain both Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad after strong campaigns from both drivers.
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UNLUCKY DOOHAN’S BAD TIMING
The decision ends Doohan’s Formula 1 hopes for 2027 and perhaps permanently, with the Australian facing a fourth season off the grid since finishing third in the 2023 Formula 2 championship.
If this is to be the end of the grand prix road for him, his path will have been one of misfortune and helplessly bad timing.
Doohan, the son of five-time 500c motorcycle champion Mick Doohan, defected from the Red Bull junior driver program for its Alpine equivalent because of its closer ties to the F1 team in 2002, and by 2023 he was Alpine’s reserve driver after a strong rookie F2 campaign.
Doohan was tipped as a championship contender for his second season, but the early part of his campaign was hamstrung by a broken car. It took the team several rounds to listen to his feedback and identify the problem, and though it precipitated a late comeback, it was too late for him to finish higher than third.
With nothing left to prove in Formula 2, Doohan contemplated various opportunities to race outside the F1 ladder, but Alpine requested that he commit to the reserve role full-time in 2024. With his heart set on Formula 1, he followed the advice and integrated himself into the team in the hope of creating his F1 debut chance.
The opportunity came in the final round of 2024, when Haas-bound Ocon was unexpectedly dropped, giving Doohan a running start for what was to be his first full-time season in 2025.
But during the off-season Alpine signed Williams junior Franco Colapinto as its reserve driver. Though the team denied anything untoward, Williams boss James Vowles said Colapinto had been loaned because he
By the time the season started, rumours were rife that Doohan’s career was already on the clock, with Colapinto apparently promised a switch by the European campaign.
They were poor circumstances for the rookie, who had to find his feet alongside the experienced Pierre Gasly in a car that would finish dead last in the championship by the biggest margin in the sport’s history.
Doohan did himself no favours with some crashes, the biggest of which was in Japan, where he left his DRS open into the first turn and immediately spun heavily into the barriers during practice — though he did so because the car had been able to take it in the simulator.
But his fate seemed sealed either way, and he was replaced just six rounds into the season following the Miami Grand Prix — ironically after outqualifying Gasly for the first time that year.
He was reportedly dangled the carrot of return through the year, variously reported as being based on Colapinto’s performance and on his ability to find additional sponsorship, but the team eventually decided to double-down on the Argentine for another season.
Doohan instead jumped ship to Haas as a reserve driver, astutely identifying Ocon’s seat as the most vulnerable of the impending silly season.
As it turned out, the Australian was sufficiently impressive that he could have been a shoo-in for the drive had this season not also coincided with culmination of Câmara’s impressive junior career in yet another case of unlucky timing.
He was in the right place, as predicted, but at the wrong time.
Speaking to Fox Sports earlier this year, Doohan said Formula 1 was no longer “the be-all and end-all” for him, with his focus changing slightly this year to establishing a professional racing career after so many seasons on the bench.
It’s unclear whether he will continue circling Formula 1 in an increasingly long-odds bid to make it onto the grid.
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WHAT ABOUT CÂMARA AND BEARMAN?
Though Bearman has yet to be confirmed, Komatsu said it’s “just a matter of timing … of finalising certain details”, with an announcement to come “in due course”.
Komatsu has already denied that fielding two Ferrari junior drivers would make Haas the de facto Ferrari junior team, but there’s no doubt this line-up is highly beneficial for the Italian brand.
With Charles Leclerc locked down for the long term and Lewis Hamilton showing no real inclination to retire now that he’s rediscovered good form, Ferrari faced the prospect of allowing Bearman, the driver next in line, to wither on the vine or potentially defect to a rival frontrunning team.
The Englishman himself said earlier this year that he couldn’t wait forever for Ferrari, even if the red team remains his priority.
Câmara’s Formula 1 debut will in a sense reset the clock by giving the team a younger, less experienced junior who will have more time to wait for a call-up.
But more important is that the two Ferrari young guns will benchmark each other before being called up to Maranello.
There’s no question that Bearman has been impressive over his almost two seasons in Formula 1, comfortably dispatching experienced race-winner Ocon and forming the backbone of Haas’s scoring efforts.
But Ocon hasn’t applied any sustained pressure to him for a long time, and Ferrari also has limited visibility of how good Ocon really is.
With Câmara alongside Bearman, Ferrari will have a much deeper understanding of how each is performing relative to the other, and both will have to respond to the low hum of pressure of knowing that likely only one of them will get their dream Maranello promotion.
The decision is also well timed for Haas, which was turned off rookies after its disastrous years fielding Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, both of whom floundered, albeit at a time of financial and competitive precarity for the American-owned squad in the shadow of the pandemic.
With Bearman, however, Haas proved its environment can foster young talent — and the Briton has anyway proved that he’s ready to lead the team, reducing the risk.
It sets up Haas as a key team to watch in 2027, with the stakes much higher than just championship position.
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WHAT NEXT FOR THE DRIVER MARKET?
Haas’s Câmara call all but seals the 2027 field at the 10th team to confirm its line-up.
Racing Bulls is the only holdout, with neither Liam Lawson nor Arvid Lindblad yet re-signed.
Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov has been touted as a potential replacement, most likely for Lawson, particularly if he beats Câmara to the Formula 2 title, though that prospect appears to have receded somewhat since he lost the series lead.
There are also some murmurs that Red Bull is considering altering its approach to Racing Bulls. Whereas its primary objective has been to blood young talent, there appears to be some contemplation of giving the team great stability by allowing it to retain drivers for longer.
This would be good news for Lawson, who in previous years would likely have been dropped at the end of 2026, regardless of his good form, in the interests of keeping the driver program churning.
But having been key to the team being on track to achieve a best-ever fifth in the constructors championship, Lawson is now tipped to continue for at least another season alongside impressive rookie Lindblad — though Racing Bulls principal Alan Permane said a decision could still be some time away.
“(A decision) is going to be in the coming weeks,” said Racing Bulls principal Alan Permane. “We’re in no rush.
“I think everyone knows we’ve got two fantastic drivers. We’ve got a fantastic driver in F2 at the moment, and they’re all there and ready to go.
“Three doesn’t fit into two of course, and we’re just going to take a little bit more time and make sure we get the right pairing for next year.
“Top of the list (of criteria) is speed and pace and all that goes with that, but … we want to bring on young talent, and of course we have one eye on them progressing in the future.
“So it’s not just about the here and now, it’s also about what they can do in the future.”
Confirmed drivers for 2027
Mercedes: Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell
Ferrari: Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc
McLaren: Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
Red Bull Racing: Max Verstappen and Laurent Mekies
Racing Bulls: none (out of contract: Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad)
Alpine: Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto
Haas: Oliver Bearman and Rafael Câmara
Audi: Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto
Williams: Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon
Aston Martin: Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll
Cadillac: Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas
Despite a silly season that started with as many as 17 drivers out of contract or with exit clauses available to them, it appears likely that Câmara will be the only change for 2027, with Ocon the only driver not to continue on the grid.
The Frenchman, however, has not given up on finding a place despite no seat being obviously available.
“If I look at the results and what I’ve shown in Formula 1, I deserve to be in Formula 1,” he said in Singapore at the weekend.
“Of course there are other categories which are fantastic as well, but I want to be racing in Formula 1 in the next five, seven years.
“That’s where I want to be, so I will keep pushing to be in that position.
“In the near future, that’s the only thing I’m looking at so far.”
He also said that he would not race next year if he could not find an F1 seat, suggesting he is prepared to consider a reserve driver role for 2027 in the hope of returning to the grid in 2028.
Aston Martin has been touted as a possibility, having reportedly been a candidate for Fernando Alonso’s seat had the Spaniard decided to retire.
Germany’s Blick has reported he could also displace Valtteri Bottas at Cadillac, though that would require the team to break the Finnish driver’s contract at significant expense — and it’s debatable whether the team would get any meaningful performance benefit from an early move given the car remains the most significant problem.
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