Isack Hadjar has conceded that he felt some \u201cdoubt and pressure\u201d when preparing to take the second seat at Red Bull, given that several drivers who came before him had struggled to match the performance of Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n
It was confirmed in December 2025 that Hadjar<\/a> would make the step up from sister team Racing Bulls<\/a> for the following season, the Frenchman having done enough to impress during his rookie campaign in the sport.<\/p>\n The move meant that Hadjar would replace Yuki Tsunoda, who had been promoted in a seat swap with Liam Lawson<\/a> following a difficult opening two rounds for the New Zealander.<\/p>\n In the years prior to this, drivers including Pierre Gasly<\/a>, Alex Albon<\/a> and Sergio Perez<\/a> had also experienced mixed fortunes in trying to match Verstappen<\/a>, something that was not lost on Hadjar when he was preparing to step into the seat.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, you come in and you\u2019re aware of where you landed, so I definitely had a few doubts because it\u2019s Max,\u201d Hadjar explained during Thursday\u2019s media day at the Hungarian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s undeniable, he\u2019s great. There was a bit of doubt and pressure, but so far it\u2019s been going pretty much like I wanted. It was definitely on my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite this, Hadjar has achieved several good results \u2013 his best being a P4 in Monaco \u2013 while his recovery drive from the back of the grid to P6 in Belgium was hailed by Red Bull<\/a> Team Principal Laurent Mekies<\/a> as his \u201cbest race\u201d with the team<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt started a bit tricky,\u201d Hadjar explained as he looked back on the first half of the season. \u201cThe first couple of rounds, I feel like I was doing the easy stuff really wrong and the tough things, like being quick, in the rhythm and not too far from Max, really well.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the last couple of rounds, I think I\u2019ve found some consistency, and in the team we\u2019ve fixed a few issues that make our life easier. It\u2019s a lot easier when the car is reliable, When it\u2019s performing, it\u2019s easy to achieve results, I\u2019m not going to lie.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good, but at the same time I would love to have a race where I can actually fight for a real podium, and that\u2019s the next target.\u201d<\/p>\n Hadjar also rated his level of confidence behind the wheel now, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s a car I handle well. It\u2019s not the easiest to drive, but it\u2019s consistent. I\u2019ve got the most out of it for a few rounds now, so I\u2019m definitely happy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re still not where I want to be. There are still a few areas where we\u2019re lacking competitiveness compared to Ferrari<\/a> and Mercedes<\/a>, so we still need to dig, but it\u2019s definitely good progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Pushed on whether he has surprised himself this season, the 21-year-old said: \u201cI actually haven\u2019t surprised myself this year, to be honest. I\u2019ve just been driving at a high level, definitely better than last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s normal because it\u2019s my second season, so I\u2019m not very experienced, but I\u2019m improving a bit. I would say Max has been very impressive on Sundays, all around. I think my one-lap pace has been pretty good, but how well he is managing the races is on a different level, so that\u2019s what I\u2019m focusing on working on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isack Hadjar has conceded that he felt some \u201cdoubt and pressure\u201d when preparing to take the second seat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-820704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}