Isack Hadjar believes one of his biggest challenges during his first season with Red Bull was not outright speed, but mastering the “easy stuff” to become a more consistent performer.
After earning a promotion from Racing Bulls at the end of 2025, Hadjar entered 2026 facing the daunting task of partnering four-time world champion Max Verstappen.
While the Frenchman immediately demonstrated impressive speed, converting that pace into results proved more difficult during the opening phase of the campaign.
The 21-year-old scored points in only one of the first four races, but his fortunes have changed dramatically since Canada, where he has established himself as a regular presence at the front of the field with a string of top-six finishes.
Reflecting on his first months with Red Bull during the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, Hadjar admitted the raw speed was there from the outset, but execution was not always matching the performance.
“It started a bit tricky,” he said of the 2026 campaign.
“The 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 [Verstappen], really well.
“Since the last couple of rounds, I think I’ve found some consistency, and in the team we’ve fixed a few issues that make our life easier.
“It’s a lot easier when the car is reliable. When it’s performing, it’s easy to achieve results, I’m not going to lie.
“It’s good, but at the same time I would love to have a race where I can actually fight for a real podium, and that’s the next target.”
Eliminating the weekend-killers
Hadjar’s assessment highlights a challenge often faced by young drivers stepping into a front-running team. While outright speed may be present, the finer operational details can make the difference between a strong result and a wasted opportunity.
When asked to explain what he meant by getting the "easy stuff" wrong, the Frenchman pointed to a collection of small but costly errors and technical learning curves that repeatedly compromised his weekends.
©Red Bull
“I think the starts carried on for a long time, and that’s not an easy thing to fix, but I was more referring to deployment issues at times, understanding the boost features, spinning on lap one, which is not ideal,” he said.
“Just stuff like that ruining our weekends. That takes a bit of adjustment, and now I think we’re well settled in.”
The improvement has coincided with greater reliability and a deeper understanding of Red Bull’s systems, allowing Hadjar to translate his pace into points far more consistently than he managed at the beginning of the year.
Learning from Max
The second Red Bull seat has become one of Formula 1’s toughest assignments in recent seasons. Alex Albon, Sergio Perez, Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda all struggled to consistently match Verstappen’s level before eventually losing their places.
Hadjar, however, has shown enough speed and composure to establish himself as the strongest Red Bull team-mate Verstappen has had in several years, even though he has yet to finish ahead of the Dutchman in a race when both drivers have seen the chequered flag.
©Red Bull
Interestingly, the Frenchman says he has not been surprised by his own performances.
“I actually haven’t surprised myself this year, to be honest,” he said. “I’ve just been driving at a high level, definitely better than last year.
“That’s normal because it’s my second season, so I’m not very experienced, but I’m improving a bit.”
While Hadjar believes his qualifying performances have been encouraging, he admits Verstappen continues to set the benchmark when it comes to race execution.
“I would say Max has been very impressive on Sundays, all around,” he added.
“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’s what I’m focusing on working on.”
That focus on race management may be the next step in Hadjar’s development. Having cleaned up the errors that once sabotaged his weekends and established a consistent points-scoring rhythm, the Frenchman now has his sights set on something bigger: turning strong finishes into a genuine fight for his first Formula 1 podium.
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