Verstappen’s team-mate struggles make Hadjar more keen to join Red Bull

Isack Hadjar has not been put off by the struggles of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mates, insisting he wants to end up in a seat next to the reigning Formula 1 world champion even more as a result.

After Sergio Perez’s struggles last year, Liam Lawson was demoted from Red Bull back to Racing Bulls after just two grands prix for the ‘A’ team, with Yuki Tsunoda swapping places.

Hadjar has meanwhile quietly gone about his business at the past two rounds. The French rookie crashed out on his F1 debut before the Australian Grand Prix had even started, but put in a strong showing at the Chinese Grand Prix and scored his first points for Racing Bulls by finishing eighth in Japan last time out.

His upturn in performance has largely played out in the background of the Red Bull drivers’ switch, but witnessing the situation from close quarters has not deterred Hadjar from aiming for a promotion of his own in the future.

“Honestly, now that it seems like it’s really hard to be next to Max, it makes me want to go even more, to find out why, what’s going on. That’s still the main target,” he said.

“It’s not like I don’t need to work anymore. Still, I always put the pressure on me to keep delivering. So now the expectations from people are maybe a bit higher, but I keep doing what I do.

Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“Like I said before the season, my target would be to keep… If the car can finish in P9 or P8, I want to be there, maximise it, not being outside the top 10. If the car deserves the top 10, then I need to be on it.”

Indeed, behind Verstappen, Hadjar is the highest-scoring driver in the Red Bull stable across the three races and one sprint so far this season – although he admits results for Tsunoda at Racing Bulls were “not fair”.

Tsunoda’s task – starting at this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix – is to now get more out of the Red Bull than Lawson managed in his two races for the senior squad before returning to the team he raced for at the back end of last season.

It has been widely accepted that the Racing Bulls is a much easier car to drive with a bigger operating window when compared to the somewhat uncompromising Red Bull which Verstappen led to victory at Suzuka.

“I think it’s probably a fair thing to say. It’s definitely a bigger window, easier to drive, but I think that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Red Bull is just undriveable. It just maybe takes a bit more time to get that comfort in it,” explained Lawson.

“[The Racing Bulls car] is not crazy different from last year, so it was more of just an adjustment back from what I’d been driving at the start of this year, and it’s quite different, but I feel good.

“I think the weekend [in Japan] as well didn’t really show properly what I think we were capable of. Unfortunately we just missed out in quality, but in general I think I felt pretty comfortable.”