Isack Hadjar is a French Formula 1 driver of Algerian descent who races for Oracle Red Bull Racing in 2026 alongside four-time champion Max Verstappen, using car number 6. He earned the seat with a standout rookie campaign at Red Bull's sister team. ¹²

He was born 28 September 2004 in Paris, France, into a French-Algerian family; his father, a researcher, also worked as his kart mechanic, and Hadjar was named after the physicist Isaac Newton. He holds dual Algerian-French citizenship and took up karting at around the age of seven. ¹

“In 2022 he took three wins and finished fourth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship with Hitech.”

Junior formulae

Hadjar climbed the single-seater ladder methodically. He finished seventh in French F4 in 2019, then third in 2020 with three wins, before stepping up to the Formula Regional European Championship in 2021, where he was fifth and rookie of the year with R-ace GP. In 2022 he took three wins and finished fourth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship with Hitech. After a tough debut Formula 2 season in 2023 (14th with Hitech Pulse-Eight), he moved to Campos Racing for 2024 and finished runner-up in the FIA Formula 2 championship with four wins and eight podiums, losing the title narrowly to Gabriel Bortoleto. French media nicknamed him "le Petit Prost" after his maiden F2 win in Melbourne. ¹

Red Bull Junior Team

Hadjar joined the Red Bull Junior Team in June 2021, and the programme backed him through Formula Regional, F3 and F2. His consistency and raw qualifying speed kept him near the top of Red Bull's young-driver pecking order even through a difficult first F2 year, setting up the 2024 title challenge that finally earned him a grand-prix seat. ¹

Formula 1 debut

Hadjar made his Formula 1 debut in 2025 with Racing Bulls, but his first race ended before it began: he crashed on the formation lap of the Australian Grand Prix, sliding off at Turn 2 and damaging his car beyond repair. He was left in tears in the garage. He bounced back immediately, and across the season scored points in roughly ten Grands Prix, with strong drives to sixth at Monaco and sixth in Las Vegas among his best results. ¹³

His teammate situation shifted early: he started 2025 alongside Yuki Tsunoda, but after just two rounds Red Bull promoted Tsunoda to the senior team and sent Liam Lawson back down to Racing Bulls. Hadjar comfortably had the upper hand over Lawson for the rest of the year, out-qualifying him 16 times and winning their race-day head-to-head. ⁴

Signature moment: the Zandvoort podium

His breakthrough came at the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix, where he qualified fourth and ran strongly behind Verstappen. When Lando Norris retired late with a mechanical problem, Hadjar inherited and held third place for a maiden podium in only his 15th Grand Prix — Racing Bulls' first podium under that name. Reflecting on it, he said he ran through "all the struggles and all the pain" of his career, adding he was "just happy I never gave up." He then accidentally broke the handmade Dutch GP trophy minutes after the ceremony. The result is widely cited as making him the fifth-youngest podium finisher in F1 history. ¹⁵

2025 season and promotion

Hadjar finished 12th in the 2025 Drivers' Championship with 51 points, outscoring every other rookie and his more experienced Racing Bulls teammate. On 2 December 2025, Red Bull confirmed his promotion to the senior team for 2026, where he replaces Tsunoda and partners Verstappen; British teenager Arvid Lindblad joined Lawson at Racing Bulls. CEO and team principal Laurent Mekies said Hadjar had "demonstrated the raw speed that is the number one requirement in this sport." ¹⁶

2026 season and current form

Hadjar has handled the step up well in a difficult Red Bull car. Through the Spanish Grand Prix in mid-June 2026 he had scored 34 points, with a run of strong finishes including fifth in Canada and a front-running drive at Monaco, plus sixth at Barcelona. He has at times outscored or run close to Verstappen, a notable marker for a sophomore against a four-time champion. ⁷⁸

Driving style and character

Hadjar is quick over a single lap and racy in traffic, but is best known publicly for his fiery team radio — emotional, blunt outbursts that drew comparisons with Tsunoda and earned gentle warnings from Helmut Marko. He insists he is "less aggressive than what people think," joking that "the radio button makes me look like a really angry guy." At Monaco in 2026, fighting car problems, he snapped "well look faster!" at his crew; Red Bull said it "understands" the outbursts. ⁹¹⁰

Bottom line

Hadjar's rise from a formation-lap crash to a podium and a top-team seat inside a single season marked him as one of 2025's standout rookies. At Red Bull he faces the sport's toughest internal benchmark in Verstappen, making 2026 a defining test of whether the Parisian can convert junior promise into front-running consistency. ¹⁶