New Red Bull signing Isack Hadjar is confident that he can win races in the 2026 Formula 1 campaign despite the struggles his predecessors faced against Max Verstappen.
The 21-year-old will partner the four-time world champion this year after replacing Yuki Tsunoda, who endured a disastrous 22-round stint with Red Bull last season by scoring just 30 points.
But Tsunoda isn’t the only driver to struggle alongside Verstappen, as Liam Lawson, Sergio Perez, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly have all tried and failed in what has been a real problem for the team since Daniel Ricciardo left in 2018.
So there were calls for Hadjar to stay with sister squad Racing Bulls after an impressive rookie campaign, but the temptation was obviously too much – and the early signs are actually positive.
“The excitement of fighting for wins against top drivers is still going to be here and that’s what matters the most,” said Hadjar during this week’s 2026 Bahrain pre-season test. “But still, you’d like to do it in cars that are super, super fast. It makes it a bit better.”
Red Bull has actually been one of the standout teams in Bahrain, as Verstappen completed the most mileage with 136 laps on Wednesday causing many paddock members to claim that the new RBPT is the strongest on the grid.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images
And although a hydraulic leak prevented Hadjar from properly running on Thursday morning, he bounced back with 86 laps and the fifth-fastest lap in the afternoon leaving the Frenchman buoyed for the season ahead.
“Obviously, that first race win is on the radar – that would be great,” he added. “I’d like to see our car progressing faster than the other teams. I think that would also be very enjoyable.”
When Hadjar was then asked if he is confident of achieving such a goal in the RB22, he responded with a very sharp “yeah”.
The sharp answers continued, particularly when he was asked about his crash in the private Barcelona shakedown a fortnight ago. He went off at the final corner on day two, which Hadjar put down to switching from wets to intermediates on a rain-soaked track.
The F1 community naturally made comparisons to when Gasly crashed on day two of 2019 pre-season testing, which started his horrid 12-round stint with the Austrian outfit. Questions of will Hadjar suffer the same fate? Is history just repeating itself?
All of which was put to Hadjar, who sarcastically responded: “When I crashed, I thought about it directly, I thought about Pierre. So I went on Twitter and I read everything, and I was like, ‘I’m screwed for the whole season’ and that’s how I moved on, honestly.”
So Hadjar clearly has the confidence to play a key role in the frontrunning cars this year, not being fazed by the complete regulation change or being Verstappen’s team-mate.
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