Red Bull junior, Isack Hadjar was the last piece in the 2025 F1 driver lineup puzzle as RB announced his signing for the 2025 season, late last year. However, the French-Algerian racing driver doesn’t have the cleanest of records when it comes to driving F1 machinery.
Hadjar drove the RB20 at the 2024 British GP during a mandatory rookie FP1 session. It was an underwhelming outing for Hadjar who finished P19 and almost caused a crash with the McLaren of Lando Norris. The Race’s Scott Mitchell-Malm has now dubbed the 20-year-old rookie as the least prepared amongst the rookie lot this season.
“Hadjar I feel is a bit of a wildcard amongst the rookie pack,” he began. This season will see an unprecedented six rookies on the grid. The likes of Oliver Bearman, Kimi Antonelli, Jack Doohan, Gabriel Bortoleto, and Liam Lawson will all make their full-time debuts alongside Hadjar this year.
Speaking about the lack of time behind the wheel of an F1 car for the 20-year-old, Mitchell-Malm explained, “I think he feels the least prepared out of all of them. I feel he’s quite rough around the edges.”
Confidence ➡️ Frustration @Isack_Hadjar Qualifying session was a rollercoaster
He’ll still start from P4 in the Feature, surrounded by his title rivals #F2 #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/HkLrmoziXS
— Formula 2 (@Formula2) December 6, 2024
In fact, Hadjar is one of the only drivers who have done the least amount of mileage in an F1 car amongst his rookie batch. Bearman and Doohan have at least one Grand Prix under their belts, whereas, Antonelli has been put through the paces by Mercedes with an extensive testing schedule for the past year.
Hadjar only has experience of testing the Red Bull car during FP1 sessions whilst his counterpart, Bortoleto has majorly impressed in the junior categories in the last two seasons. The Brazilian won the F3 championship on his debut in 2023 and followed it up with the F2 title last year in his rookie season — pipping Hadjar to the trophy by 22.5 points.
Hadjar and Tsunoda might pose big problems for RB in 2025
Hadjar’s pairing with Yuki Tsunoda could become a big headache for the RB management going into the 2025 season. Tsunoda is infamous in the paddock for his temperament and lack of composure. Mitchell-Malm feels that Hadjar is similarly aggressive and emotional.
“He’s quite emotional over the radio sometimes and Red Bull were a little bit skeptical about his capacity to handle everything,” he adds. The duo of Tsunoda and Hadjar ranting over the radio next season could become a problem for the team given their ambitions to break into the upper midfield of the grid.
However, Helmut Marko has backed the French-Algerian driver to have some interesting battles with his more experienced teammate. The Red Bull driver feels that Hadjar has the ingredients to rattle the Japanese driver or at least keep him on his toes.
Tsunoda himself missed out on an opportunity to drive for the main Red Bull team in 2025, allegedly due to his temperament, and Hadjar’s induction could trigger chaos for the entire management given their emotional personalities going head-to-head in an uber-competitive environment.
