Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull plan? Embrace the pain, then get quick
Isack Hadjar isn’t arriving at Red Bull with chest-thumping proclamations about taking the fight to Max Verstappen. Quite the opposite. He’s bracing for frustration, expects to be slower at first, and thinks that mindset might just be the thing that keeps him alive in F1’s toughest seat.
Promoted after a standout rookie campaign with Racing Bulls — highlighted by a maiden podium at Zandvoort and a season spent reliably in the points — the 21-year-old will replace Yuki Tsunoda alongside Verstappen for 2026. The announcement came in Abu Dhabi as the curtain fell on 2025, and it felt different from the usual Red Bull second-seat narrative. No bravado. No denial of the obvious. Just realism.
“It’s not like Max knows the car; we all start from scratch,” Hadjar said in Abu Dhabi, nodding toward F1’s wholesale rule reset for 2026. “It’s the best timing by far. I feel very, very lucky in the way I’m coming to Red Bull.”
Of course, a clean-sheet rulebook won’t rewrite reality overnight. Verstappen remains Verstappen: relentlessly adaptable and relentlessly fast. Hadjar knows it.
“If anything, the goal is to accept that I’m going to be slower the first month,” he said. “You accept already that it’s going to be very tough… looking at the data and seeing things you can’t achieve yet. It’s going to be very frustrating. But if you know, then you’re more prepared.”
It’s a refreshingly blunt approach after years of churn in that garage. Since Daniel Ricciardo left, plenty have tried to make the second Red Bull seat their home. Some were gone before they’d unpacked. The pressures are unique; the benchmark is unforgiving. Hadjar’s answer is to disarm the pressure rather than fight it.
“Everyone thinks they’re special. Coming in like: ‘He’s a human, I’m gonna beat him,’” he said, without a hint of malice. “And then you get stomped over. And then the snowball effect starts. Whereas, if you come in, you’re like: ‘I’m nowhere near…’ We’re talking about the best driver on the grid. So the chance that I’m slow at the start of the year is very high. So I might as well accept it now and just work towards getting there.”
That last line — work towards — is where the 2026 reset matters. Whatever Red Bull produce, it won’t be a Verstappen-specific museum piece on day one. Hadjar isn’t expecting the regulations to handicap his teammate; he’s expecting Verstappen to do what he always does.
“He doesn’t have a driving style,” Hadjar said. “He adapts to what he’s given and that’s what makes his strength. So he’s gonna be as good in next year’s cars as he is on this year’s car and as he was on the year before.”
If that sounds defeatist, it’s actually the opposite. Hadjar’s self-critique has been a throughline of his rookie season. When he left time on the table, he said so. When he overreached in qualifying, he owned it.
“I have my expectations, and what I was willing to do was sometimes too high for the abilities I have at the moment,” he admitted. “I’m always mad because I didn’t get the perfect lap… And that leads to some mistakes at times, because I put so much pressure to deliver.”
There’s a reason that profile appeals at Milton Keynes. Red Bull can work with a driver who knows where the limit is and why he crossed it. What’s broken them in the past is the spiral — trying to bend the car to a comfort zone, chasing a teammate who isn’t waiting, letting the gap become a story. Hadjar’s trying to cut that off at the source.
“Be unbelievably quick, good outside the car, working with the boys — that’s the only way you’re gonna get there,” he said. “It’s not with a mental, specific approach. You need to get the job done as well, on track.”
That’s the assignment. The upside? 2026 gives Hadjar a rare equalizer — a launch point that didn’t exist for those who stepped into a mature Verstappen/Red Bull ecosystem. The downside? Verstappen tends to solve new cars faster than most. It’s the paradox Hadjar is walking straight into with eyes wide open.
Is this the driver who finally settles that seat for the long term? Red Bull has been hunting for someone who can survive the early turbulence, absorb the lessons, and become a force in his own right. Hadjar’s acceptance of short-term pain isn’t waving a white flag; it’s permission to learn without the panic.
He’ll still need to deliver the basics: tidy Saturdays, tidy Sundays, no overreaching as the field grapples with fresh machinery. Do that, and the frustration he’s bracing for might turn into something more useful — pressure applied in the right direction.
Hadjar’s not promising fireworks in March. He’s promising patience. In that garage, that might be the bravest play of all.
