Rafael Camara has been announced as a Formula 1 driver for the 2027 season and he will serve as Esteban Ocon’s replacement at Haas.
It will see the 21-year-old Brazilian make his F1 debut after such a rapid rise through the junior formulae.
Camara won the 2024 Formula Regional European Championship and the 2025 Formula 3 title, following that up by currently leading the Formula 2 standings by seven points.
But he is still such a raw talent as opposed to the experience and race-winning know-how of Ocon, who has endured a tough time since joining Haas at the start of 2025.
So has the American outfit made the right move? Our writers have their say.
Raw speed makes Camara a great pick
Rafael Camara, Invicta Racing
Photo by: Dom Gibbons / Formula 1 via Getty Images
As the saying goes, you can make a quick driver reliable, but you can’t make a reliable driver quick.
Camara is one of the fastest drivers from the past decade in junior formulae; his qualifying record speaks for him. He took seven poles, more than anyone, on his way to the 2024 Formula Regional European Championship title; his 2025 F3 record was five poles out of nine, which is unprecedented in the current era. You’d have to go back to Luca Ghiotto’s identical feat, in the 2015 GP3 season, to find similar performance. And yet, in perhaps the most competitive title fight ever at that level, Ghiotto had narrowly lost out to Ocon in the title race.
Fast-forward 11 years, and Ocon is losing his Haas seat to Camara. Are the Frenchman’s results this season representative of his actual performance? Probably not, with the VF-26’s infamous inconsistency issue plaguing him for a long time. But it perhaps took a toll on the atmosphere within the team as frustration grew, and in that case, making a change made sense – especially with someone like Camara available.
The Brazilian has it all: backing from Haas supplier Ferrari – just like expected future Haas team-mate Oliver Bearman – obvious pace and potential back-to-back titles in FREC, F3 and F2. The Invicta racer currently leads the standings in F1’s feeder series, with five pole positions out of 13. Nobody else has taken more than two.
Of course, there have been mistakes, like his lock-up into retirement as he fought title rival Nikola Tsolov for victory in Monaco, but Camara has still taken consistent points finishes and commanding feature race wins.
Haas will miss Ocon’s experience, but Bearman can grow into the team leader role, and the decision makes sense to prepare for the future.
- Ben Vinel
Why remove a grand prix winner for a rookie?
Ocon after winning the 2021 Hungarian GP
Photo by: Dan Istitene / Getty Images
Ocon was quite frank about it: he doesn't deserve this shit, he said, to be precise. And to be just as frank, I see no reason to disagree with him.
Yes, the numbers usually don't lie. And Ocon, despite being the more experienced driver, with every right to be considered a team leader, has scored fewer points so far than Bearman.
But is that really a case of him underdelivering?
Ayao Komatsu has admitted there have been issues with the car's inconsistency, and if you believe Ocon, he's only had a handful of races in which he's been able to have a proper go at it. And the last few rounds certainly suggest that, even if he's not better than Bearman, he's at least on a par with him.
Throughout its history, Haas has benefited greatly from having drivers with a wealth of experience. The likes of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen helped develop it into a credible team – and it has also failed spectacularly with rookies in the past. The choice to go with Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin back in the day was a matter of survival, given the financial backing both brought. But does Haas really need to go for a rookie driver now? There's no reason to believe so.
So it appears that the Brazilian has been chosen by Haas on sporting grounds, but I can't see how he can be better right now than a proven race winner. Unless there's simply too much pressure from Ferrari to take on another junior from its Academy, I can't see Camara scoring more points for the team straight away than Ocon, with all his experience.
Ocon is still fast and reliable when the car works as it should. So why make the change? Especially if it's for another driver who can be taken away whenever Ferrari needs him.
How can you build your future around drivers who are basically on loan from a bigger team? I thought the Ocon and Bearman combination made perfect sense in that regard, as the Frenchman was the team's own driver. Now Haas gives more of an impression of becoming a Ferrari junior team rather than an independent outfit.
All of that, of course, becomes irrelevant if Komatsu has seen something absolutely special from Camara during these TPC tests – and given how Bearman has turned out, you'd argue Ayao knows what he's doing.
But still, there's a feeling that Ocon has been hard done by the team – which has almost used its underperforming car as an excuse to get rid of him.
- Oleg Karpov
This is the chance for Haas to sign a potential generational talent
Rafael Camara, Invicta Racing
Photo by: Dom Gibbons / Formula 1 via Getty Images
Over recent rounds it’s been hard to feel anything but sympathy for Ocon, watching him deliver such outlandish statements in a clear desperate plea to stay on the grid. Would he have been saying such things if he weren’t up against it? No. It was clearly a tactic from him to remind people of what he’s done in the past, knowing the jury was very much out.
But like it or not, a lot of what he said was actually true. Ocon did cap off a solid junior career by winning GP3 - beating Max Verstappen in European F3 in the process - and more than held his own for a decade in F1.
His very impressive first full season in 2017 mustn’t be forgotten, scoring points in every round bar two for Force India, nor should the fact that he came very close to a career-changing move to Mercedes during its dominant years. There’s also his win at Hungary, 2021, as well as the fact that he’s one of only two drivers - Jenson Button the other - to outscore Fernando Alonso in a season as team-mates - 92 to 81 in 2022.
It is hoped that the above facts are what Ocon will be remembered for, and not his two seasons with Haas. Similarly, Daniel Ricciardo should mostly be remembered for everything but his decline at the end.
Yet there is another fact - or opinion - that mustn’t be ignored: it is time for Ocon to leave. Although results have improved of late, how much of that is down to the 30-year-old knowing he has a point to prove and a job on the line? Haas just isn’t going to get much better with the Frenchman behind the wheel, but it just might with such an exciting youngster in Camara.
Oleg talks about age and experience, but the 2026 champion-in-waiting - Kimi Antonelli - started the season as a teenager. So is that really as important in this day and age? Camara is also the same age as Bearman, and his junior record speaks for itself.
If he becomes F2 champion, he will join Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Oscar Piastri and fellow Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto to win that and F3 as rookies. Camara will also become the only driver to win those two and FREC in consecutive seasons.
These are all the statistics of a future frontrunner and when one considers the 21-year-old’s speed as outlined by Ben, he is already F1-level. There’s no reason to believe he won’t be fighting for wins and titles in 10 years time. A chance for Haas to sign such a driver may not arise again, so this is an opportunity it must pounce on, and fair play for doing so.
- Ed Hardy
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