Isack Hadjar must “cheer up” and give his Racing Bulls team the positivity which they “need to hear”.
Hadjar revealed this as the advice which his “entourage” has passed on, the F1 2025 rookie admitting that he is “self-critical a lot” despite piecing together what is an impressive first campaign thus far.
Give us a smile, Isack Hadjar
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Hadjar graduated to Formula 1 via an F1 2025 seat with Red Bull’s junior team Racing Bulls. There was a setback in the early days as Hadjar spun out on the formation lap ahead of his first grand prix in Melbourne, but the recovery has been impressive.
Hadjar has put 22 points on the board from 14 rounds, with a best finish of sixth at the Monaco Grand Prix. He has impressed Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko, a pivotal figure to make a positive impression on.
Yet, a key area which he still needs to work on, is getting more joy out of a success.
“I need to cheer up a bit more when I have a good result for my team,” Hadjar admitted to the media, including PlanetF1.com.
How Isack Hadjar stacks up against his F1 2025 team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
Following that comment, Hadjar was quizzed on whether this is something which he has noticed about himself.
“It’s just that, like, when I have a very good result and I know there was more left on the table and I could have done a better job, I’m self-critical a lot,” the Frenchman added.
“And I’ve been told by my entourage, you know, I need to cheer up a bit more, because the mechanics, the engineers, they need to hear positive things.
“But I can tell you when I do the job and I’m happy with myself, if there’s someone that celebrates, and that goes crazy to me. But it’s quite rare.”
But, where Hadjar can display some self-positivity, is in declaring that Red Bull were “right” to give him the F1 2025 Racing Bulls seat.
With Liam Lawson moving up to Red Bull as the initial Sergio Perez replacement, that allowed Hadjar to slot in at Racing Bulls alongside Yuki Tsunoda. After two rounds of the season, Red Bull executed a switcheroo as Lawson returned to Racing Bulls and Tsunoda moved the other way.
Hadjar finished runner-up to Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto in the 2024 Formula 2 Championship – his second season in the category – to earn the F1 call-up.
“It’s been very uncertain, very stressful,” said Hadjar when asked if there was any stage towards the end of 2024 where he feared being absent from the F1 2025 grid.
“I was fighting for [the] F2 Isack Hadjar told to ‘cheer up’ and give Racing Bulls what they ‘need to hear’ at the time, so I was trying to give my best. To be fair, I didn’t know until I got called.
“It’s been a tough ride, but they made the right decision, so I’m happy.”
Read next: Major Isack Hadjar future hint as Red Bull F1 2026 timeline revealed