Isack Hadjar trades kerbs for dunes — and comes within a whisker of the pro pace
Isack Hadjar’s winter to-do list included something a little more violent than simulator runs and fitness blocks. The Red Bull-bound Frenchman strapped into a Ford Raptor T1+ and went rally-raiding across a 4 km desert loop, armed with six laps to get within 15 seconds of a pro’s benchmark. He needed only three.
Mitch Guthrie Jr., Ford’s Dakar spearhead and teammate to rally-raid royalty Carlos Sainz Sr. for 2026, laid down the marker: 3 minutes 16 seconds. Hadjar sat shotgun for a recce run and delivered the only appropriate review — “Holy sh*t… your car control is insane!” — before hopping in the driver’s seat for his first-ever off-road outing.
Lap one, a cautious 4:20. Lap two, a little braver and a little too hot into the braking zone — brief off, dust cloud, lesson learned. Still two seconds quicker. Then the lights switched on: a 3:31 on lap three, already inside the target window. No one told him he’d cleared the bar.
From there the times sharpened. A 3:23, then a 3:19 that had Guthrie wondering aloud whether the F1 kid had edged him. Officially, the stopwatch said no — but only just. On his timed run, Hadjar banked a 3:18, two seconds shy of the pro. For a driver who’d never pointed a car at a dune before breakfast, it was a punchy statement.
“I rarely have this much fun in a car,” he grinned amid the debrief. The competitive side bled through too: “I have a few regrets to be honest. Some bits were very good, some… I f***ed up.”
The exercise was more than content fodder. It’s part of the growing Red Bull–Ford axis ahead of F1’s 2026 regulation reset, a tie-up that will put Ford’s name on Red Bull’s power units and, clearly, Red Bull’s drivers in Ford’s toys. It’s also a handy read on Hadjar’s adaptability — a trait he’ll need in bulk next year.
After a standout rookie campaign with Racing Bulls in 2025, Hadjar’s been promoted to the senior Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen from 2026. It’s the gig every junior in the system dreams about and the one most find suffocating. On this evidence, Hadjar’s not short on nerve.
What stood out in the desert was his curve. He built speed quickly, processed the navigator’s calls, and reset immediately after the off. Those are transferable habits whether you’re threading a street circuit or skipping across ruts in a 2,000 kg monster with suspension travel you could camp under.
It also said something about his feel. Hadjar trimmed big chunks of time by working the car’s weight and letting it flow, not by trying to wrestle it. Ask anyone who’s made the F1 jump: mechanical sympathy and finesse beats white-knuckle aggression nine times out of ten.
The timing is neat. While Ford readies its Dakar debut for 2026, Hadjar’s attention flips to Formula 1’s new ground rules and his first miles in Red Bull’s next-gen car at a closed-doors run in Barcelona in late January. The work starts there; the scrutiny begins the moment the garage doors lift. The pace of the Verstappen yardstick doesn’t need spelling out.
But for a driver whose 2025 season reminded the paddock why Red Bull keeps investing in its pipeline, this desert cameo was a tidy footnote: fast learner, quick hands, no fear of the deep end. On lap three, he’d already beaten the brief. On lap six, he nearly beat the pro.
There’s a bigger test coming. For now, it’s another small sign that Red Bull’s next man up isn’t just ready to play — he’s keen to play in the rough stuff, too.
