Isack Hadjar: From Melbourne gut‑punch to Red Bull call-up — “I took it, and I got back up”
Isack Hadjar’s first day as a Formula 1 driver lasted one formation lap. Cold tyres, a damp Albert Park, a snap of oversteer out of Turn 1, and the Racing Bulls rookie was backwards into the wall before the lights ever went out. He climbed out, helmet on, shoulders heavy. Later, back in the paddock, Anthony Hamilton found him for a quiet word. It was a brutal initiation.
Hadjar calls it a punch in the face. He also calls it part of his story now.
“I believe everything happens for a reason, and you move on,” Hadjar reflected when we spoke after his promotion to Red Bull for 2026. “It’s part of my history — my first F1 start, I didn’t take part in it, which sucks still, but it’s how it is. It just proved to me… I know I have a strong ability to get back up to my feet, but this was just another big punch in the face, and I took it. I handled it very well, and it reinforced this belief I have in myself.”
The sting was especially sharp because the Frenchman had announced himself so well in Melbourne qualifying, lining up an eye-catching 11th on debut. The error on Sunday morning could have unspooled his year before it began. It didn’t.
Instead, Hadjar steadied his hands and got on with the job. He settled into the points with a regularity that surprised the neutral and impressed the people who matter. He then made it undeniable with a first Formula 1 podium at Zandvoort — a savvy, highly composed drive on one of the calendar’s least forgiving laps of asphalt. For a driver who lost his literal first start, it was a neat bit of symmetry to bag a maiden rostrum at Max Verstappen’s house.
There were pricklier moments, too. Hadjar’s intensity is visible; you can almost hear the self-audit before he’s out of the car. Outqualified by team-mate Liam Lawson? He felt it. Missed a braking point in Q2? He wore it.
“I noticed this — I have my expectations, and what I was willing to do was sometimes too high for the abilities I have at the moment,” he said. “In qualifying, I’m always mad because I didn’t get the perfect lap, like I didn’t maximise every corner, every braking, and there’s always something missing. At the same time, it’s just my first year. If anything, I was maybe being too hard and leading to some mistakes at times, because I put myself under so much pressure to deliver.”
That edge won him admirers up the road in Milton Keynes. With Yuki Tsunoda struggling to string results together in the RB21, Red Bull moved decisively: promote Hadjar into the seat alongside Max Verstappen for 2026. It’s a ruthless system when it wants to be, and the same scrutiny that bristled at Hadjar’s Melbourne tears turned into nods when the points kept coming.
He hasn’t sugar‑coated how he operates. The mirror is his first suspect.
“It’s always my fault, and then maybe I think of the car,” he admitted. “It’s always me first. It’s very extreme, but it’s better this way than the other way around, that’s for sure. You’ll never catch me with a smile if I didn’t do the job, even if the result is incredible. If the job is not done properly, then I’m not interested.”
Will that mindset survive the Verstappen pressure cooker? That’s the question — and the fun of this promotion. Red Bull seats don’t come with patience; they come with lap-time demands and a championship standard set by a four-time world champion. The trick — ask those who’ve sat there — is to accept where the bar is without letting it crush you.
Hadjar, at least, is coming in with eyes open. Melbourne didn’t break him; it clarified him. He learned that a bad day can be absorbed, processed, and converted into points on the board a week later. He learned that the noise around a mistake fades faster than the work done after it. For a 20-year-old who arrived with sharp elbows and sharper expectations, that’s not nothing.
He could’ve scored points straight away in Australia, he says with a shrug. Maybe. The season he actually had ended up telling Red Bull more about who he is. And as origin stories go, “DNF on the formation lap” isn’t the worst prologue when it leads, one year later, to the most coveted second seat in the sport.
The punch landed. He got back up. Now comes the hard part.
