Formula 1’s cost cap sits at $215 million this year. Haas is the one team not spending to it, and team principal Ayao Komatsu told Motorsport.com he wished it were otherwise.
“I wish we can. We’re not. It’s one of the top priorities on my job list to be able to fund this team so that we can operate at the budget cap.”
That single number is why Esteban Ocon’s Haas seat for 2027 is the least stable on the grid.
The 28-year-old Frenchman earns a $7 million base salary in 2026, according to Paddock Intel’s driver pay grid. His teammate Oliver Bearman earns about $1m. In a team saving every dollar for car development, a seven-to-one salary ratio between drivers is only sustainable if the higher-paid one delivers on Sunday.
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Ocon has not.
Outscored six to one by the rookie
Going into the summer break, Bearman leads Ocon 18 points to three, as Formula 1’s half-term Haas review noted, with 17 of the rookie’s 18 points coming from the first two races of the season. The qualifying tally is 11-4 to Bearman at the break, a slide from what was already an 18-12 loss to the same rookie in 2025.
Ocon out-qualified Bearman for the first time since Monaco at the Hungarian Grand Prix in late July, but Haas has now gone five races without a point since Monaco. The team stood fourth in the constructors’ standings after the first two races. It has slipped well down the order since.
Komatsu described his own operation as “fighting with both hands tied”, pointing to a headcount of around 400 against more than 1,000 at several rivals. Every seat, every euro, matters.
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The junior queue at Haas’s door
The names circling the second seat are all cheaper than Ocon and younger. Leonardo Fornaroli, the 21-year-old Italian who won F2 in 2025 and is now McLaren’s reserve, has emerged as the favorite. The Race reported that a letter of intent gives Haas a route to loan Fornaroli from McLaren, and he tested a Haas VF-25 impressively earlier this year.
Ferrari junior Rafael Câmara, currently third in the 2026 F2 championship, is being pushed by Maranello, though paddock consensus is that he needs another season. Red Bull’s reserve driver Yuki Tsunoda, dropped from the main team’s 2026 lineup in favour of Isack Hadjar, is on the list too, though his Honda ties sit awkwardly with Haas’s Toyota partnership.
Any of them would come in on rookie money.
Two races to save his seat
Ocon himself, speaking to Motorsport.com before the break, was careful about the chatter.
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“Of course nothing to announce yet. The summer break will be quite busy. We will see.”
He was less guarded about his own year.
“Probably the most difficult first half of the season that I’ve ever had. Not frustration maybe, but too many difficulties. Too many issues.”
The Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort runs on Sunday, 23 August, followed a week later by Monza. Two weekends to turn the second half into something Haas can afford to keep paying for.
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