Ryo Hirakawa's helmet: the Le Mans winner who scored on his F1 debut

Ryo Hirakawa made his Formula 1 race debut in Mexico City on 1 November 2026, two days after Haas took Esteban Ocon out of the car. He had already driven Ocon’s VF-26 in first practice on the Friday, under the rookie practice rule; on Saturday morning the team said he would replace Ocon “for the remainder of the weekend”. He qualified 19th and finished tenth, scoring a point. He will not race in São Paulo this weekend, where Rafael Câmara takes the seat: Hirakawa is due at the 6 Hours of Monza, the World Endurance Championship finale, with Toyota.

At 32 he was the oldest F1 debutant since André Lotterer at Spa in 2014. Born in Hiroshima on 7 March 1994, he was Japanese F3 champion in 2012, Super GT GT500 champion with TOM’S in 2017 and runner-up in Super Formula in 2020. With Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley in Toyota’s No. 8 car he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the WEC drivers’ title in 2022, and the trio kept the title in 2023. His F1 practice running began with McLaren at Abu Dhabi in 2024, continued with Alpine at Suzuka in 2025, and moved to Haas as reserve driver from April 2025.

His helmets in the archive

His WEC driver page lists a Toyota season entry for every year from 2022 to 2026. Those entries confirm the seasons and the team, taken from the championship entry lists. They do not yet describe the designs, because no source we have opened does; the colour and design fields stay blank until one does.

The helmet his daughter drew

The best-documented Hirakawa helmet is the one Haas showed on X before his first run for the team, in first practice at the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix. His daughter designed it to celebrate Japan: “H RYO” is written by hand across the back, with a hinomaru flag, hearts, stars and a smiling face around it. THE ANSWER, reporting the post on 12 April 2025, collected the replies from fans, most of them variations on “too cute”.

We have not confirmed which design he raced in Mexico City: no source we could open describes the helmet he wore on 1 November. It is not in the archive yet, and it will be added as an F1 entry once a source shows it.

His F1 future is open. Haas has Câmara signed for 2027 and Oliver Bearman, not yet confirmed when Câmara signed, widely expected to stay, and Hirakawa remains the team’s reserve.

This article was drafted from the archive’s own sourced entries with AI assistance. Spotted a mistake? Use the Report a mistake link on the helmet page.