Esteban Ocon has had a frustrating first half of the 2026 season, which could lead to him losing his Formula 1 seat at Haas
“Probably the toughest first half of the season I’ve ever had.” That’s Esteban Ocon’s midseason assessment after a sobering first half of the 2026 season at Haas. The Frenchman has been one of the biggest disappointments of the Formula 1 season so far and, due to his lackluster performance, faces being replaced on the team.
His meager tally: three points in eleven races—resulting from a tenth-place finish at Suzuka and a ninth-place finish in Monaco. By comparison, teammate Oliver Bearman already has 18 points to his name.
To be fair, however, it must also be noted that Bearman scored 17 of his 18 points during the first two race weekends; since then, he has added only one more.
This means Ocon has scored three times as many points as the Brit on the remaining race weekends—at a time when it was difficult for the Haas drivers to even get close to the top 10.
Is Ocon’s performance a fair assessment?
But the truth is also that Bearman has actually always had Ocon well under control, even if he hasn’t been able to turn that into points. Bearman leads 8-3 in the team’s internal qualifying duel. Only in Japan, Monaco—where Ocon scored points in both races—and most recently in Hungary was Ocon able to finish ahead of his teammate.
Ocon crossed the finish line ahead of Bearman only twice—while Bearman did so seven times ahead of Ocon.
The numbers seem clear-cut, but even Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu had to admit that assessing performance is difficult, as the Haas car is very inconsistent for both drivers. Both speak of puzzling performance differences, even though the car’s specifications should actually be the same.
“There were too many things that prevented us from performing,” says Ocon. “That was probably the most difficult first half of a season I’ve ever had—in terms of how inconsistent the car was from one race to the next and how many problems I’ve had this year.”
Can Haas solve the problems?
Before the summer break, the Frenchman had said that he’d only had two weekends where everything went normally—frustrating for him and for the entire Haas team. “You always want to arrive at a weekend and have everything run smoothly,” he says. “Just work on the car as usual, fine-tune the setup, and get the most out of it.”
But he says he’s been able to do that far too rarely. “But that’s just how it was. I’m continuing to work with the team to help them as much as possible to solve these problems and try to get the best result for us.”
Ocon emphasizes, however, that everyone at Haas knows what needs to be done. “And we’re sticking together to fix the problems. That’s the key,” he says. “I’m sure we’ll get through this together. It’s true that this has been going on for quite a while now, which is difficult. But we’re sticking together and we’ll fix it.”
In the end, though, the numbers in Formula 1 rarely lie. Despite everything, Ocon’s seat remains in serious jeopardy. Ferrari junior Rafael Camara and Formula 2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli are just waiting for their chance.
