Ryo Hirakawa’s route to F1 ran through Japanese titles and endurance racing

Haas’s Saturday call-up gave Ryo Hirakawa his first opportunity to race in Formula 1. The 32-year-old Japanese driver was named to replace Esteban Ocon for the remainder of the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend, a day after driving Ocon’s car in FP1.

His path to that opportunity began in Japan with karting. Hirakawa moved to single-seaters in 2010 and progressed through Formula Challenge Japan to the Japanese Formula 3 Championship, where he won his debut race before taking the 2012 title.

After joining the Toyota Young Driver Program, he moved to Super Formula in 2013. Across nine years in the category, he recorded four wins and four pole positions. He also raced in Super GT’s GT500 class from 2014 to 2021 and won the 2017 title.

Endurance racing brought further success. Hirakawa entered the WEC Hypercar class with Toyota Gazoo Racing in 2022 and won the Drivers’ Championship in his first season alongside Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley. The squad repeated the feat in 2023 and secured a second consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans victory.

His Formula 1 progress came through reserve and practice roles. McLaren signed him to its Driver Development programme and named him a reserve driver in September 2023; he made his first FP1 appearance at the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Alpine recruited him as a test and reserve driver for 2025. After another FP1 appearance at the Japanese Grand Prix and a switch to Haas, Hirakawa completed four more practice runs in 2025 and two in 2026; the second of those came just before his Mexico call-up.

At the time of the call-up, 32-year-old Hirakawa was set to become the oldest F1 debutant since Andre Lotterer, also 32 when he entered the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix. Lotterer’s sole F1 event ended after a mechanical problem stopped his Caterham one lap in. Hirakawa qualified 19th for his maiden event.