Isack Hadjar dropped a big hint on his Formula 1 future with some confident responses to questions about his long-mooted switch to Red Bull for 2026.
The French rookie has impressive hugely in his debut season, with a plethora of points finishes and a podium in Zandvoort, currently placing him ninth in the Drivers’ Championship table.
Hadjar’s maturity and speed have made him a leading contender to be Max Verstappen’s team-mate at the Milton Keynes-based squad next season, with current stablemate Yuki Tsunoda struggling to match the Dutchman’s pace.
Speculation that Hadjar will ultimately be the chosen one has rumbled for much of the year, but Red Bull has shifted the goalposts in terms of its timing of the final decision.
Initially thought to be at the weekend of the Mexico City Grand Prix, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko then stated it would be made closer to the end of the campaign.
Hadjar, speaking to media including Motorsport Week ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, said that “apparently it’s now decided one round before the end of the season”.
When asked if he felt the decision could still be based on his performances in Doha and in Abu Dhabi next week, Hadjar replied: “Absolutely not.
“You don’t decide based on whether it’s 22 or 23 races – you take the average.
“That’s how you take a decision. So, I can have the worst weekend in history. Now, it’s not going to change anything.”
Why Hadjar sees 2026 as the ‘perfect’ time to make Red Bull switch
Hadjar had previously seemed to suggest that he was keen to spend one more year at Racing Bulls, perhaps to gain another year of experience without the spotlight shining a bit more firmly.
But with next year seeing F1 introduce a brand new set of technical regulations, Hadjar now indicates that it may be a good time to make the switch from satellite squad to the main team, given every driver will be on an equal footing in terms of adapting to the new cars.
“It’s good, perfect, because I keep changing cars every year,” he explained. “In my life, I never repeated a season with the same car – it never happened to me.
“I don’t know what it’s like to have two seasons, even when I did two years of F2, there was a change in the regulations. It was a brand new car. Same in F4. So, I don’t know what it’s like.”
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