Rafael Camara will race for Haas in 2027 on a "multi-year deal", announced on 15 October. His statement thanked Gene Haas and "the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy for their support," and opened with the team's full name: "I'm very happy to be joining TGR Haas F1 Team." Those three letters belong to Toyota Gazoo Racing, which replaced MoneyGram as title partner for 2026. Toyota's candidate for the seat, Ryo Hirakawa, will stay at Toyota for a sixth WEC season instead.

Read as a sponsorship story, that looks like a partner losing. Read against the partnership documents, it looks like the deal working as written.

What the documents promised

Toyota's own release of 11 October 2024, when the technical partnership began, was subtitled "Providing Drivers, Engineers, and Mechanics Chances to Develop by Facing Challenges at the Pinnacle of Motorsports." Its driver clause was specific: "the participation in MoneyGram Haas F1 Team test drives by TGR training drivers," because "this will enable the drivers to gain driving experience in F1." The rest of the scope was engineering: aerodynamic development and carbon-fibre parts. The release gives no term.

Haas's title partnership release of 4 December 2025 went further on branding and no further on seats. Its Testing of Previous Car running in 2025 "extended across 14 days utilizing the Haas VF-23," with Hirakawa, Ritomo Miyata, Sho Tsuboi and Kamui Kobayashi all driving, and the programme "from 2026 will officially be known as the 'TGR Haas Driver Development Program'." Komatsu spoke of growing "the likes of our driver program." Akio Toyoda said that "the time has come for the next generation to take their first steps toward the world stage." Neither document mentions a race seat or states how long the title deal runs.

On the ground, Toyota's drivers got the running the documents describe, and a reserve role besides. Hirakawa has been Haas's official reserve driver since April 2025, drove Ocon's car in first practice in Austria in June and Bearman's in Hungary in July, and shared the reserve role with Jack Doohan after Haas signed Doohan in February.

How the seat was settled

The decisive running, per Lawrence Barretto's interview with Komatsu, was "a two-day test in Portimao, Portugal, in August" in old-spec cars: "essentially a shoot-out" between Camara, Leo Fornaroli, Doohan and Hirakawa. Fornaroli had already had his own Haas audition as the 2025 F2 champion, which PN covered in June. "It was close," Komatsu said.

In the announcement Komatsu called that test "our TPC program in Portugal." By Haas's December naming, the programme now carries Toyota's initials. The audition Toyota's driver lost was run in the test programme Haas had renamed for its title partner.

Gene Haas's statement credited the test, "Rafa impressed the team with his TPC performance," and then set Camara beside his other race driver: "what we've experienced through Ollie Bearman following a similar trajectory and association with the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy, these younger drivers are well prepared." Beyond the team name, Toyota appears nowhere in his statement or in Komatsu's words on formula1.com. Komatsu has since supplied the part the documents leave out. Akio Toyoda "was very keen to get one of his drivers to the race seat next year," he told Motorsport Week and other media in remarks published on 17 October, and was told the seat would go to the fastest driver, a condition Komatsu said Toyoda was "completely happy with."

Two partners, two kinds of contract

Ferrari supplies the power units, under a technical partnership that Haas announced in July 2024 as running until 2028, the last term either side has published. Its academy's drivers hold one Haas race seat in 2026 and are signed or wanted for both in 2027. Toyota's contracts, as published, buy a name on the car, engineering exchange, a simulator project at Banbury and mileage for its drivers. A seat for Toyota's drivers was never among the published terms.

The seat still open

Komatsu wants Bearman, "fellow Ferrari-backed" in formula1.com's words, alongside Camara: "our objective is to continue with him next year." He added a qualifier he did not explain: "It's a matter of time, but it's not fully under my control." If that seat goes the way he wants, TGR Haas F1 Team starts 2027 with two Ferrari academy products in its cars and Toyota's drivers where the 2024 release put them, in test drives.

Camara, meanwhile, goes to Lusail on 27 to 29 November seven points clear of Nikola Tsolov, 207 to 200 in fiaformula2.com's standings as published on 16 October, with Yas Marina to follow.