Racing
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Esteban Ocon said he has “nothing to announce yet” about his future ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, as his Haas seat comes under growing scrutiny after he scored only three points in the first 10 rounds of 2026 and described the opening half of the season as the toughest of his career.
Ocon’s contract is said to expire at the end of the season, and his difficult form has left his future uncertain heading into the last race before the summer break. In Budapest, the Haas driver said the next few weeks could be significant. “Of course nothing to announce yet. The summer break will be quite busy. We will see,” Ocon said. “At the moment we will discuss with the team first. I've been here for two years. I've been convinced by Ayao [Komatsu] to come here. The first discussion will happen with this team for sure.”
The pressure has built not only because of the points tally, but because Ocon has been heavily outscored inside the same garage. Ollie Bearman arrived in Hungary with 18 points to Ocon’s three, underlining how far Haas’ more experienced driver has fallen behind during a season that has also continued his struggles from 2025.
Ocon insisted the story is not simply one of being beaten on pace. He said the VF-26 has been unpredictably inconsistent from race to race and even from session to session, leaving him unable to access the car’s expected level in all but two events.
“The biggest struggle I think has been the consistency of the car,” Ocon said in Hungary. “One time we had straight-line issues, one time downforce issues. The car hasn’t been healthy all the time, let’s say, and hasn’t been performing like it should. That has hurt us [in] performing well.” He added that “there’s only been two races where we were performing as normal for the car level that we had.”
He gave a bleak summary of the first half of the year when asked to assess his season overall. “Not frustration maybe, but too many difficulties. Too many issues. Too many things that prevented us from performing,” Ocon said. “Probably the most difficult first half of the season that I've ever had.” He said the problem was “purely about the consistency of the car, from race to race,” adding that Haas was working together to fix it.
That explanation was reinforced by Bearman, who said Haas’ problems are affecting both sides of the garage. Speaking in Thursday’s driver press conference at the Hungaroring, Bearman said “the inconsistency between our parts has been quite high” and that the team can see balance changes overnight without expecting them.
“It’s a tough situation which is happening in our team,” Bearman said. “I’ve been on the bad side of that, I’ve also been on the good side of that.” He added: “It’s not always a fair fight, the one that we are having. Sometimes we feel like we’re fighting with our hands almost tied behind our back.”
Ocon also rejected the idea that a simple chassis swap would solve it, saying Haas has been “circling through parts” while trying to understand losses in straight-line speed and shifts in front-to-rear balance that appear even when the team does not necessarily change components.
That leaves Haas facing a difficult call as the break approaches. Ocon said the team knows what it needs to do, but with his seat reportedly under threat and Haas understood to be considering Leonardo Fornaroli or Rafael Camara for a future drive alongside Bearman, the summer break now looks likely to shape whether Ocon gets the chance to turn this season around with the team.