Isack Hadjar’s first piece of F1 silverware didn’t even make it through the team photo.
Moments after the Racing Bulls rookie climbed off the Dutch Grand Prix podium, he set his brand-new P3 trophy down for a group shot outside the garage. The base stayed put. The top didn’t. Cue a very modern kind of heartbreak: the first podium, split into two.
If you were watching the celebrations at Zandvoort, you’ll know how he got it. Hadjar started on the second row, ran a tidy, unfussy race in fourth, and when Lando Norris’ McLaren bowed out late on, the Frenchman stepped into third. That’s how it goes sometimes — keep your nose clean, cash in when the race flips — and it earned the 20-year-old his first trip to an F1 rostrum.
The trophy’s fate, however, proved less robust than his afternoon. Event organisers and Royal Delft, the Dutch manufacturer behind the distinctive ceramic cups, moved quickly to take the sting out of the moment. Hadjar will get a fresh P3 trophy, they confirmed, and he’ll also keep the broken one as a souvenir — a slightly avant-garde reminder of day one on the boxes.
Royal Delft and the Dutch GP explained the how and why. These are hand-painted, high-quality ceramic pieces. Beautiful, yes. Also fragile. Put them on an uneven surface, and the pressure can load up in all the wrong places, especially around thinner sections. That’s where cracks form, and once they do, gravity does the rest.
For context, the design has sat on the Zandvoort podium for three straight years without drama. This was the outlier, not a design flaw. Wrong surface, wrong moment, unlucky break.
The replacement is in the works, with timing to be confirmed. No one is arguing Hadjar shouldn’t have something intact to put on the shelf — and he will. But there’s also something perfectly “rookie season” about the two-piece edition he’s taking home. The sport doesn’t always give you neat story arcs. Sometimes it gives you ceramic confetti.
Inside the Racing Bulls garage, it barely dulled the mood. A first F1 podium is still a first F1 podium, and there was a lot to like about how Hadjar handled the Dutch GP. He was composed in the pack, didn’t get dragged into fights that weren’t his, and when opportunity knocked, he opened the door. That’s early-career racecraft teams salivate over.
The Dutch GP organisers were keen to underline the craft, too. These trophies aren’t churned out; they’re painted by hand, each one a small work of art. If you want maximum theatre on the podium — and Zandvoort absolutely does — you accept the trade-off that ceramics can be temperamental in the wild. Metal bends. Ceramic breaks. It’s part of the charm, and part of the risk, as Hadjar learned in front of every team photographer within sprinting distance.
In the end, he leaves with two mementos: the repaired pride of his first F1 podium, and the literal reminder that big days rarely go off without a hitch. The next time he’s up there — and on current evidence, there’s no reason to think there won’t be a next time — expect the trophy to remain firmly in his hands until it’s strapped into the passenger seat.
Zandvoort gave him the breakthrough. The photo op gave him the anecdote. And somewhere in Delft, a painter is already working on Hadjar’s replacement — a second first trophy for a debut podium that won’t soon be forgotten.
