Why promoting Hadjar for F1 2026 would be Red Bull repeating the same mistake

“Isack is different,” Helmut Marko told journalists after Isack Hadjar finished a sensational third at Zandvoort, answering a question about whether he believes the Frenchman can withstand the pressure of potentially being Max Verstappen’s team-mate.

Of all the Faenza team’s podiums, Sebastian Vettel’s Monza win excluded, this was probably one of the most solid. Yes, Zandvoort featured three safety cars and its share of incidents, but there was little freak lottery: a late retirement for Lando Norris elevated the rookie into the top three, and the rest was about pace, consistency and clean defending. Hadjar qualified fourth, kept George Russell’s Mercedes behind and stayed close to Verstappen for most of the race. It was a very impressive performance.

While reports about a 2026 Red Bull promotion may be premature – Red Bull’s bosses are clearly in no rush to finalise their line-up, after all – it’s fair to say Hadjar has made a compelling rookie-season case to be a prime candidate. Especially considering the performances of both Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson. As it appears now, Red Bull’s choice is between those three; promoting Arvid Lindblad straight into the hottest seat in F1 would seem crazy even by Red Bull standards.

Hadjar has done more than enough to merit serious consideration, and it’s hard to see what Tsunoda can do now to top that. Winning a couple of races before the Mexican Grand Prix – the likely decision point – would help, but how likely is that? Probably no more likely than Hadjar scoring another podium. There’s little evidence Tsunoda has everything he needs for a breakthrough.

There still isn’t an obvious choice, though. Even after such an eye-catching performances in his rookie year, is Hadjar a ready-made top-team driver? Most likely not. To arrive at Red Bull truly prepared, he’d benefit from another year or two at the sister team; its former boss Franz Tost would probably tell you the same. Would keeping Tsunoda in that seat be right? Not really, given the lack of performance – and more importantly, a lack of clear progress.

There’s also Lawson. But has he done enough with Racing Bulls to make Red Bull want to give him another try at the senior team? Pierre Gasly didn’t get that chance even after winning a race and scoring two more podiums with the sister team. So probably not.

As things stand, Red Bull’s choice appears to be between keeping Tsunoda or replacing him with Hadjar.

“Clean samples,” Laurent Mekies said in Monza when asked what the team needs to properly assess Tsunoda over the next races.

Such samples have been scarce. Across the 14 races Tsunoda has done so far with Red Bull, none really qualify – he’s still struggling to put complete weekends together. And therefore – despite Mekies’ calm responses – he is clearly running out of time and testing his bosses’ patience.

Tsunoda’s task this year wasn’t easy, either, as he was put next to Verstappen after two races. And his case is a prime example of what’s been wrong with recent Red Bull driver decisions: a lack of clear references.

How much of his early struggle is down to adapting to an RB21 tuned for Verstappen? How much of the gap to the Dutchman can be explained by spec differences? Tsunoda himself claimed that even Marko underestimated the size of that factor. Paul Monaghan, meanwhile, seemed to downplay it when he faced the media in Zandvoort.

“It’s nice that we can finally settle that a difference,” he said, but added: “And it wasn’t as big as people might think.”

Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls Team, Laurent Mekies, Alpine

Photo by: Mark Thompson – Getty Images

Spa qualifying, when Tsunoda finally got the same floor as Max, appeared to support his side of the story as he earned seventh on the grid – as did Hungary to some extent, where, despite a Q1 exit, he was less than 0.2s off his team-mate. At Monza the Japanese driver was again close to Verstappen in Q1 and Q2, but the gap increased in Q3 – partly because Tsunoda was first on the road and had no tow.

You can’t get clean samples if drivers are always thrown in playing catch-up while being measured against the best driver on the grid.

Was Lawson meant to be ready for that challenge after 11 grands prix? Clearly not – and on top of that, he wasn’t given enough time to prove anything. Two races at tracks he didn’t know, with the pressure of knowing the dream job could disappear any second, is hardly a fair chance. No doubt he didn’t deliver what was expected – yet those expectations were probably unreasonable.

There’s also the pressure factor. Tsunoda had four years with the junior team, yet was clearly shown he was the last resort when Red Bull promoted Lawson over him. Then he was essentially told: ‘You wanted it so much, now prove it’.

In the last couple of years Red Bull has simply thrown its juniors into the deep sea to see if they can swim – even though they haven’t had enough time in the pool. Inevitably, most drown.

Now, 2026 looks like a slightly different proposition. That’s what Hadjar himself was getting at on Thursday in Monza.

Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls

Photo by: Piotr Zajac / NurPhoto via Getty Images

“To be honest, at the start of the year, they [the media] were asking me if I was feeling ready to jump in the Red Bull this year,” he said. “And the answer is still no, because I don’t see the point of doing that right now.

“But ’26 is a different question because it’s a brand new start for the team. There won’t be this talk of the second car thing. This wouldn’t be a thing because it’s a brand new car for everyone. You will be in a phase where you need to direct the car in the right direction. I think this is actually interesting.”

He’s got a good point. New rules should reset the ‘tuned for Max’ issue – allowing Isack to learn the new car alongside the four-time world champion. If he ends up in that seat, he’ll influence development more than he would with the current generation of cars. RB21 is what it is because Verstappen has been the main reference point for the team; that won’t carry the same weight next year…

Even so, sharing a garage with Verstappen and being measured against him is a massive task. The Dutchman’s edge isn’t just raw speed; it’s his ability to help set up the car, amplified by a near-perfect fit with the people around him. He’s had the same race engineer for almost a decade, and his crew knows exactly what Max needs and how he feeds back. That matters. To get anywhere near him, a driver must be as ready as possible. If Hadjar joins Red Bull for 2026, he’ll have just one F1 season behind him – a bit less than Pierre Gasly had, a bit more than Alex Albon and Liam Lawson, and about the same as Daniil Kvyat.

Helmut Marko’s remark about Hadjar being “different” isn’t really different from the reasons he’s listed for previous promotions. Lawson was meant to be mentally strong enough; Tsunoda was meant to have matured enough.

Neither of these notions was proven on track.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Helmut Marko, Red Bull Racing, Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

Ask this in isolation: would Hadjar himself benefit from another year – or even two – learning F1 with Racing Bulls? The answer is a clear yes. Throwing him in now would still require him to catch up, only under greater pressure – a constant in the Red Bull environment. Some argue that Gasly and Albon still built good careers after their Red Bull stints. That’s true, but it doesn’t help Red Bull itself.

There’s also no clean data to compare Lawson, Hadjar, and Tsunoda. We don’t have an apples-to-apples sample of them against each other. Even when they shared a Racing Bulls garage at different points, there were always confounding factors. You can’t really compare Lawson and Tsunoda at the end of last year when the New Zealander was thrown in as Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement in the autumn. You can’t draw conclusions from two races when Tsunoda was paired with Hadjar. You can’t demand instant results from Lawson after demoting him back to the junior team and forcing him to learn a new car. To get a “clean sample”, you’d really need a full season.

As strange as it may sound, there may be only one way out of the woods: stop constantly changing drivers and give them more time – not only to prove themselves without drowning under pressure, but also to develop. Even if that means keeping the struggling Tsunoda for one more year.

Hadjar’s podium was a fantastic demonstration of his potential. It’s also true he lacked consistency right before that, being outscored by Lawson in most rounds prior to the Dutch GP during F1’s European stint. He clearly still has things to improve and learn. And Red Bull Racing is not the right place to do that.