Komatsu believes Câmara is exactly what Haas needs
Haas
Haas‘s statement on Esteban Ocon‘s departure, announced at the end of September by the American Formula 1 team, was pretty specific in what it didn’t say.
Team boss Ayao Komatsu credited the Frenchman’s “driving experience and inputs” as significant in developing this year’s VF-26 through a major regulation change, implying that Ocon’s job of being the experienced benchmark was complete, and his services were no longer needed
Yet Haas is letting him go for Rafael Câmara, a rookie who has been proving himself in Formula 2 and in Testing of Previous Cars programmes.
The choice show which part of the driver checklist Haas thinks it was missing with Ocon: speed. And it showed in the comments that Komatsu released when he announced the deal.
“In his rookie season in Formula 2, the speed he’s shown in some very difficult moments, like qualifying in Monaco and Montreal – that all goes to show the potential Rafa has,” he said.
Câmara was born in Recife on 5 May 2005. He began karting before he was 10 and quickly made an impression, progressing through the junior categories before winning a round of the WSK Super Master Series in 2019.
Câmara made his single-seaters debut in F4 in 2022
Ferrari
In February 2021 at Adria he won the WSK Champions Cup before going on to take the WSK Super Master Series title, beating current F1 drivers Kimi Antonelli and Arvid Lindblad.
That May, at Genk in Belgium, he won a race in the CIK-FIA European Championship and a Champions of the Future race in the OK category.
That record got him noticed by Escuderia Telmex, Ferrari‘s scouting partner in Mexico and Latin America, which put him forward for the Ferrari Driver Academy’s world finals.
He did well there despite limited experience in a Formula 4 car and became the academy’s third Brazilian, after Enzo Fittipaldi and Gianluca Petecof.
He was selected for the FDA in November 2021 and made his single-seater debut in 2022, joining the same academy as Oliver Bearman, Ocon’s current team-mate at Haas.
The Brazilian won the F3 title as a rookie in 2025
Ferrari
His first single-seater year was 2022. He finished second in the Formula 4 UAE Championship and third in both the Italian and ADAC series. He was third in the Formula Regional Middle East Championship in both 2023 and 2024, and won the Formula Regional European Championship title later in 2024.
In 2025 he won the Formula 3 title with four feature-race victories from pole, and became the first F3 champion to clinch the title with a round to spare.
He then moved to Invicta for F2, the team that had run Gabriel Bortoleto and Leonardo Fornaroli to the previous two titles.
His rookie F2 season has been fast and with a somewhat uneven start. He won lights-to-flag in Hungary, but at Monaco he went straight on at Sainte Devote and handed the net race lead to title rival Nikola Tsolov.
Since then, however, he has failed to scored in just three Sprint races, chasing down season-long championship leader Tsolov.
Baku finally changed the picture. He qualified in the top five for both races and finished fourth in the first Feature race after a drag race to the line with Noel Leon, which put him a point clear of Tsolov in the standings.
The F2 title could be Câmara’s at Imola if the Middle East races don’t go ahead
Ferrari
Then, on Saturday, he took the flag second in the second Feature race and inherited the win when Alex Dunne was penalised, his third Feature race victory of the season.
With Losail and Abu Dhabi still to come, if both rounds do take place, Câmara leads Tsolov by seven points.
Komatsu has been open about the checklist for the man replacing Ocon: speed first, then quality of feedback, then being a good team player.
“What we’re looking for in a driver, first and foremost, is the guy needs to have speed, the guy needs to be fast,” Komatsu said in Baku.
“That’s something that is their talent. We cannot teach them the speed, so [they] need to be fast.”
Feedback and team play can be built inside a team. Speed can’t, so Haas is hoping that with Câmara, it’s buying the speed.
On speed, Câmara’s case rests on his pace through the season and on what Haas has seen for itself.
Haas ran a test with last year’s VF-25 at Portimao on 26-28 August, with Câmara alongside Fornaroli and reserve Ryo Hirakawa.
The three days of running look to have secured Camara his F1 seat.
“He showed when we had him drive in our TPC program in Portugal that he could handle himself very well with not a huge amount of time to learn the car,” said Hirakawa.
Komatsu wants, above all, Câmara’s speed
Haas
The key requirement was ticked, then. But it was his potential that also shone through in Portimao. “He showed us more than just raw speed,” Komatsu conmtinued. “Rafa managed to create an environment to get the best out of himself, it was very impressive and certainly the laps he completed were special.
“We’re all excited about this opportunity and really committed to nurture this talent and provide a place where he can flourish.”
It wasn’t Haas’s first look at him. Câmara has also run Ferrari’s previous-generation cars which is valuable as a speed check, but there are no starts and no race pressure to go with them.
Komatsu had named Câmara among five candidates, with those two plus Jack Doohan and Ocon.
Toyota, Haas’s technical partner, preferred Hirakawa, and Gene Haas is reportedly the one who pushed for Câmara.
Haas’ gamble on Câmara is smaller than it looks, because Ferrari is carrying part of the risk. Team chief Fred Vasseur has said “We strongly support Rafael” and that the cost of Ferrari’s testing programme with him far exceeds its financial support.
Haas is a Ferrari customer, and the deal makes an all-academy pairing with Bearman. Komatsu says that “doesn’t really matter” to him.
Ocon’s own season complicated the case for retaining him, as his speed wasn’t as consistent as expected from a driver who was supposed to lead the team.
Bearman will be the team’s leader in 2027
Haas
The car, however, has been a limiting factor for both him and Bearman this year, as Haas has continued to operate below the budget cap, unlike most, if not all, of its rivals.
Ocon’s experience hasn’t been turning into points, and if the car is the limit, Haas may reason that the seat is better used to grow a driver than to hold one.
From an against-the-odds debut in Melbourne to a fireball in Bahrain, a fertiliser company, and a quiet resurgence under new management, Haas has survived ten years in Formula 1 – and has a unique story to tell
But the scale of the change is stark. Ocon will leave with over 200 F1 starts. By the end of the season, Bearman will have 50, while Câmara will arrive with none.
Unless Racing Bulls drops Liam Lawson in favour of Tsolov, Haas will field the most inexperienced line-up on the grid.
It is a big change from the veteran-and-youngster pairing it has run, and the risks are practical.
Bearman, in only his third full season, will have to take the leadership role, although based on the evidence of 2026, that looks less of a danger at this point.
In a budget-capped sport, a small team like Haas pays a higher price for rookie errors, and as Câmara learns the ropes, that will be a factor to consider.
The bet is that Câmara’s feedback and racecraft can be coached, and his speed can’t. If he is fast enough that the coaching pays off, Haas might have found a new star.
