After finishing an impressive second in the F2 championship this season, Isack Hadjar got his well-deserved promotion to F1 with Racing Bulls, Red Bull’s junior team. However, before he signed his contract for 2025, he had trust issues with Red Bull despite being the team’s reserve driver for the past two seasons.
“Until a day or two before signing my contract, I honestly wasn’t sure about the situation,” the French-Algerian driver told Canal+. “But after that, I had to sign quite a few papers, because you never know with the people in Formula 1!”
The 20-year-old added that although he knew since the Qatar GP weekend that he would receive this opportunity, he did not feel assured as he “hadn’t signed anything” till then. Hadjar added, “Things often change very quickly and at one point I even thought I would be a reserve driver next year” because of how long it took for Red Bull to hand him the contract.
Things do indeed change quickly and the case in point is Perez’s time in F1. After delivering a few impressive podiums at the start of the 2024 season, the Mexican signed a contract extension with Red Bull.
Isack Hadjar tells Canal+: “Even during and after Qatar, after I had just heard that I would go to Formula 1, I hadn’t signed anything yet. Sometimes I thought, ‘f*ck, something is going to happen’.”
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However, with his form suffering a massive dip in the second half of 2024, Red Bull had no choice but to drop him and promote Liam Lawson. So, it makes sense that Hadjar didn’t feel relieved until he had his F1 contract in his hand.
Hadjar will see a few familiar faces in F1
With the 2025 F1 grid set to feature six rookies, Hadjar will see a few familiar faces, having driven against some of them — Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber), Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), and Oliver Bearman (Haas) — in F2 this season. Since F1 will have so many rookies wanting to create a good impression, it may help Hadjar settle in more easily, knowing that many of his peers are in the same boat.
At RB, Hadjar will be up against the experienced Yuki Tsunoda, who will compete in his fifth F1 season. Since Tsunoda is already so experienced, Hadjar will most likely not be expected to beat him.
The French-Alegerian driver’s responsibility will be more to learn from Tsunoda and score as many points as he can to help RB finish as high up as possible. Doing so will help boost his chances of getting a call-up to the main Red Bull team if a vacancy arises in the future.
