F1 team announce lineup change as HISTORIC move confirmed

Laura Muller and Esteban Ocon at Haas — Photo: © IMAGO

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F1 team announce lineup change as HISTORIC move confirmed

Haas have announced a new appointment for the 2025 season

Kevin McKenna

Tuesday 21 January 2025 19:57 Updated: 11:17

A Formula 1 team have made history after announcing a change to their lineup ahead of the upcoming season.

The 2025 campaign gets under way in Melbourne in March, with the F1 grid featuring multiple changes after the 2024 silly season.

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Lewis Hamilton has recently dominated headlines following his arrival at Ferrari's factory in Maranello, as he completes his switch from Mercedes.

The seven-time world champion is looking to be in the mix for silverware in 2025, but will face fierce competition from team-mate Charles Leclerc, as well as defending champion Max Verstappen and last year's runner-up Lando Norris.

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Esteban Ocon will be racing for Haas this season after departing Alpine

Laura Muller becomes Haas race engineer

Further back on the grid, a number of teams, including the likes of Haas and Williams, have made driver switches with the Carlos Sainz moving to the Grove-based outfit following Hamilton's Ferrari signing.

Haas will also field a brand new driver lineup which consists of Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon, as they look to build upon last year's seventh place finish in the constructors' standings.

In addition to those driver changes, there will be further alterations to Haas' lineup with Ronan O'Hare and Laura Muller having been confirmed as race engineers for Bearman and Ocon respectively.

Muller will become the first full-time female race engineer in F1 as result of this change, in a historic move as she prepares to work alongside Ocon following his arrival from Alpine.

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Haas boss Ayao Komatsu is looking forward to the new season

"She's a determined character and then she's very hard-working. She has a very good work ethic," Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu said to Motorsport.com.

“In terms of looking at the personality, Esteban is a pretty determined character as well. So from that side, I think they will be a driving force and their personalities match.

“When she sees a problem, she digs deep, and she doesn't stop at the first answer.

“You know, some people when they find the first answer they stop digging and they say ‘oh, great, I found the solution’ and they move on. But no, she knows that there are new questions to answer.

“So her determination is the one thing that impresses me the most. She's still quite young yet she's still quite experienced but needs some guidance and support, but with her work ethic I think she can progress pretty quickly.”

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