Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has outlined his and the team’s expectations for Max Verstappen’s new team-mate Isack Hadjar in the 2026 Formula 1 campaign.
The Frenchman is stepping into the seat that many joke is cursed, with the metaphorical ghosts of his predecessors, hired and then disposed of, lingering in many people’s memories.
Hadjar’s promotion comes off the back of a stellar debut season with satellite team Racing Bulls, earning him the chance alongside Verstappen, displacing Yuki Tsunoda in the process.
The 21-year-old has already set a relatively low bar for himself initially, telling select media including Motorsport Week he “accepts that I’m going to be slower [in] the first months.”
Mekies told media including Motorsport Week at Abu Dhabi ahead of the 2025 season finale that he believed Hadjar’s rise in his first year of F1 was “outstanding”.
“Isack has had an unbelievable first season,” he said. “There is no doubt that in terms of starting point – so where he started in January – the starting point was outstanding.
“Then we are strong believers not only in the raw talent, but also the ability of the drivers to develop.
“We have seen so many champions developing through the years, doing things that they had not done in the car a few races before.
“We’ve seen that with Isack this year too. We’ve seen him making stuff in the car that he was not doing three races before.”
Hadjar’s Red Bull move ‘another start to continue to develop’
Little is known of Red Bull’s necessary restructure, with long-time advisor and junior driver developer Helmut Marko now retired, and Mekies a matter of months into the Team Principal role, having replaced Christian Horner in July last year.
Those who came before Hadjar have been subject to little time and a ruthless exit when results have not gone according to plan, but with Horner and now Marko – often deemed as hard taskmasters at the team – gone, there could be a change in attitude at Milton Keynes.
In his answer to the question of what his expectations of Hadjar are, Mekies appeared to indicate that, perhaps, there may be a new culture.
“To answer your question, we expect – we would like him to continue onto that path,” he said. “We don’t see it as a landing point.
“We see it as another start for him to continue to develop, to continue to impress us, to continue to surprise us.
“And you will expect that in the second year. You will expect that in the third year, perhaps in the fourth year. So that’s a little bit the journey for us together.”
READ MORE – Isack Hadjar credits Racing Bulls for ‘huge steps’ amid Red Bull F1 switch
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