5 late-notice F1 debutants and how they fared as Hirakawa replaces Ocon in Mexico City

Ryo Hirakawa will make his Formula 1 debut at this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix after being drafted in by Haas to replace Esteban Ocon. Hirakawa, 32, will climb into the VF-26 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in order to make a relatively short-notice debut, having also run in FP1, but how have other short-term debutants fared in Formula 1?

Stephane Sarrazin – 1999 Brazilian GP

Stephane Sarrazin had a solid junior single-seater career, coming in sixth place in International Formula 3000 in 1998, which was regarded as the final step towards Formula 1 back then.

He was also a test driver for Prost, but it was with Minardi whom he made his debut in Brazil having been drafted in for Luca Badoer, when the Italian regular suffered a wrist injury.

Sarrazin qualified a respectable 18th, ahead of team mate Marc Gene, though in the race had a dramatic accident midway through proceedings when he went off through the final corner at high speed.

Sarrazin looped the Minardi several times before coming to a safe halt, ending what proved to be his first and only F1 race.

Sarrazin went on to have an eclectic and varied career in motorsport, including in sportscars, rallying and Formula E, winning the pre-WEC Le Mans Series in 2007 and 2010.

Andre Lotterer – 2014 Belgian GP

Andre Lotterer was a Jaguar test driver in the early 2000s but the German instead found a plethora of success elsewhere. Lotterer won titles in Japan, in Super GT and Super Formula, won the first World Endurance Championship in 2012, and claimed three victories at Le Mans – including in 2014.

A few weeks after that third triumph Lotterer was drafted in by the ailing Caterham squad, which had undergone ownership and management changes, for the first post-summer break Grand Prix in Belgium.

Caterham’s slow and underdeveloped CT05 was a hopeless cause, but Lotterer fared well, out-qualifying regular Marcus Ericsson in wet conditions.

The race, though, was a short-lived encounter as a mechanical problem halted Lotterer after only the first lap, and regular racer Kamui Kobayashi was restored to the line-up thereafter. Lotterer returned to sportscars – and Formula E – and he added another WEC title in 2024, before moving to Genesis for the brand’s debut campaign.

Stoffel Vandoorne – 2016 Bahrain GP

Stoffel Vandoorne was McLaren’s reserve driver in 2016 off the back of an emphatic title-winning campaign in the GP2 Series the previous year.

McLaren kept Vandoorne active with a seat in Super Formula, and he was out in Japan preparing for the new campaign when he received the urgent call to fly across to Bahrain.

Regular racer Fernando Alonso had been ruled out of action in Bahrain in the aftermath of his violent crash at the opening round in Australia, when he rolled through the gravel after colliding with Esteban Gutierrez’s Haas.

Vandoorne took an overnight flight, during which he effectively read the manual of McLaren’s MP4-31, and he arrived in the country just a few hours before the first practice session. Vandoorne qualified in 12th position, ahead of team mate Jenson Button, and ran a solid race to round out the top 10 – picking up a point in the process.

Vandoorne secured an F1 seat with McLaren full-time, but was dropped after two years, though remained active in the sport through reserve roles at Mercedes and Aston Martin.

Nyck de Vries – 2022 Italian GP

Nyck de Vries had a circuitous route to F1, as the one-time McLaren protégé eventually won the Formula 2 title in 2019, by which time avenues to a race seat had not been forthcoming.

De Vries won the Formula E title with Mercedes, and picked up a reserve role at the team, and in 2022 fulfilled the young driver role for Mercedes and a couple of its customer teams: Aston Martin and Williams.

De Vries participated in FP1 at Monza for Aston Martin, as expected, but on Saturday found himself instead behind the wheel of Williams’ FW44 after Alex Albon was ruled out due to appendicitis.

The team’s package was strong around the high-speed blasts at Monza and de Vries profited handsomely, qualifying in 13th position, which became eighth on the grid due to various engine penalties elsewhere.

De Vries raced competently and picked up two points for ninth position, and his performance facilitated a full-time move to AlphaTauri for 2023.

However, it was a short-lived affair, as De Vries was dropped after 10 Grands Prix. De Vries returned to Formula E, and sportscars, where he this year triumphed for Toyota at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Ollie Bearman – 2024 Saudi Arabian GP

Ollie Bearman had caught the eye in junior categories, and had Ferrari affiliation, and was in the early stages of his sophomore Formula 2 campaign in Saudi Arabia when he got a message on Saturday morning to hot-foot it to the F1 paddock.

Bearman, who had already taken pole position in Jeddah for the weekend’s Formula 2 race, was parachuted in to replace Carlos Sainz, after the Ferrari driver was taken unwell because of appendicitis.

Bearman got up to speed through the final practice session and qualified in 11th position, only narrowly missing out on a berth in Q3, and in the race went on to take a creditable seventh place – the youngest driver to score points for Ferrari.

Bearman made two more stand-in appearances in 2024 with Haas, and then joined the team full-time for 2025, where he has since remained – and will this weekend be team mate to debutant Hirakawa.