There is plenty to watch out for in the upcoming F1 season with six rookies featuring on the grid. One of them is the highly talented Isack Hadjar, who finished second in last year’s F2 standings, only behind champion Gabriel Bortoleto.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko seems quite keen on watching how Hadjar performs in his maiden F1 season. Along with issuing a warning about Hadjar’s “impulsive” nature, Marko also revealed he is looking forward to the “interesting duels” the French-Algerian driver and teammate Yuki Tsunoda are likely to have next year.
“Isack (Hadjar) is a very fast driver but also very impulsive, which could make the duel with Yuki within the team interesting,” Marko told AutoRacer. Although Hadjar had several moments of glory in last year’s F2 season with four wins to his name, he also had several moments when his impulsive nature cost him.
Helmut Marko tells https://t.co/l1QDBsS4ni: “Isack (Hadjar) is a very fast driver but also very impulsive, which could make the duel with Yuki within the team interesting.”
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One such moment took place during the sprint race in Australia last year when the 20-year-old was demoted from first due to a post-race penalty he received for causing a collision on the opening lap. Since Tsunoda also has similar characteristics to Hadjar, it will be interesting to see how Red Bull‘s sister team Racing Bulls manage their races.
In the past, Red Bull has not taken Tsunoda’s impulsive behavior too kindly. Reports claim that the Milton Keynes-based outfit also decided against promoting him for the same reason.
Will Tsunoda lose his F1 seat in 2026?
Red Bull surprised many with their choice of driver line-ups after they decided to promote rookie Liam Lawson to their senior team instead of Tsunoda, who has grown from strength to strength in his four years with their sister team.
What was arguably even more shocking was that soon after, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confirmed that they would let Tsunoda leave their stable if they fail to offer him a promotion to their senior side in 2025 itself. This means that for Tsunoda to have any chance of staying with the Red Bull stable beyond 2025, he needs Lawson to underperform at Red Bull.
While there is a chance of that happening as all of Max Verstappen’s past teammates at Red Bull have struggled massively, Tsunoda will not want to bet on that and will hope to secure his future for 2026 and beyond much earlier.
