Rafael Camara takes FIA Rookie of the Year as Hadjar’s standout F1 debut goes unrewarded
Isack Hadjar’s breakout season might have landed him a Red Bull seat, but it didn’t land him the silverware on Friday night. The FIA handed its 2025 Rookie of the Year trophy to Rafael Camara at the season-ending gala in Uzbekistan, leaving the Racing Bulls star off the roll of honour after a stellar first year in Formula 1.
Hadjar’s case was strong. The French‑Algerian arrived from a runner-up finish in the 2024 F2 championship and instantly put Racing Bulls on his shoulders, scoring 51 of the team’s 92 points as the Faenza squad edged Aston Martin for sixth in the constructors’ standings. He banked his first F1 podium with third at Zandvoort in August, then capped his campaign with the biggest news of his young career: a promotion to Red Bull Racing for 2026 to partner Max Verstappen. He even turned his first official laps in Red Bull colours in the Abu Dhabi post-season test earlier this week.
But the FIA’s Rookie of the Year isn’t an F1-only gong; it spans categories, and Camara’s résumé in Formula 3 this season was outstanding. The Ferrari junior won the F3 title at the first time of asking, collecting four victories on the way, just a year after claiming the Formula Regional European crown with Prema. He’ll move up to F2 with Invicta Racing in 2026, and he does so with a global trophy already under his arm.
Hadjar may feel a touch miffed, and you can see why. Beyond the points and the podium, he beat expectations in a car that was supposed to spend its year sniping for minor points and ended up embarrassing bigger names on a Sunday. His head-to-head work inside Racing Bulls told the story too, forming the spine of a campaign that ultimately earned him the call-up most drivers spend a decade chasing.
Still, he wasn’t the only F1 rookie making headlines in 2025. Andrea Kimi Antonelli delivered three podiums for Mercedes — third in Canada, a best of second in Brazil, and then a promoted third in Las Vegas after McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were disqualified for excessive skid-block wear. The Italian teenager even stuck it on pole for the Miami sprint in just his sixth F1 weekend. If the Rookie of the Year was a popularity contest among top-flight debuts, Antonelli would’ve made it a three-way brawl.
Oliver Bearman’s first season didn’t lack for substance either. The Ferrari junior outscored his more experienced Haas teammate Esteban Ocon and came close to a podium in Mexico with P4. The Briton did flirt with the limit on steward patience, though — he’ll start 2026 two penalty points shy of an automatic race ban. Meanwhile, Gabriel Bortoleto quietly impressed at Sauber, peaking with sixth in Hungary as he translated his 2024 F2 title into solid F1 racecraft.
In that context, the FIA’s decision looks less like a snub and more like a reminder of what the trophy is supposed to recognise: the brightest rookie performance across the sport’s ladder, not just at its peak. It also continues a recent trend. Oscar Piastri remains the most recent F1 driver to win the award, doing so in 2023 after a rookie season that included a sprint win and two grand prix podiums. Before that, the likes of Charles Leclerc claimed it in both F2 and F1. And for 2024, the honour went to Bortoleto for his F2 title run.
As for Hadjar, the real prize always sat elsewhere. Red Bull confirmed ahead of Abu Dhabi that he’ll step up to the senior team next season, replacing Yuki Tsunoda, who moves into a test-and-reserve role for 2026. That’s a ruthless promotion path by any standard — but it’s also very Red Bull. The programme exists to feed the big team, and Hadjar did everything right to force the issue. Zandvoort was the headline, but his season was built on repeatable Sundays and very few mistakes, which is the currency Christian Horner and Helmut Marko value most when the stakes jump from Q2 scraps to fighting for podiums.
There’s also the small matter of who he’s replacing and who he’s joining. Verstappen’s orbit is not easy to enter, let alone survive in. Accepting the gravitational pull of the three-time world champion and carving out a role alongside him is a challenge that’s fried good drivers before. But Hadjar’s temperament, at least this year, looked cool enough for the job. He didn’t try to win the lottery every lap; he made the car look better on Sundays than it did on Saturdays. That translates.
So no trophy from the FIA. No problem. The Rookie of the Year makes a nice line in the bio; a Red Bull race seat changes a career. Camara deserved his night — he blitzed F3 and looks every inch the next Ferrari-backed star. Hadjar, meanwhile, has walked into an off-season where the hard part starts now. He’ll want a cabinet full of bigger awards soon enough. And those, as everyone at Milton Keynes will tell you, only come with a silver car in your mirrors and a trophy soaked in champagne by nightfall.
