Isack Hadjar admits his ‘expectations’ were ‘too high’ for his abilities before Red Bull promotion

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Red Bull have promoted Isack Hadjar to their top driver line-up for the 2026 F1 season, but the Frenchman was not entirely happy with his rookie campaign with Racing Bulls.

Hadjar debuted in F1 for Racing Bulls in 2025 after Red Bull made a late change to their line-ups. Red Bull had not initially planned on giving Hadjar a Formula 1 seat in 2025, but a drive became available at Racing Bulls when they promoted Liam Lawson to replace Sergio Perez.

Lawson failed to cut the grade at Red Bull, who demoted the Kiwi back to Racing Bulls after only two rounds in a straight seat swap with Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese star also struggled to shine in the RB21, and he will now step back to a reserve driver role for the 2026 season.

Hadjar has replaced Tsunoda at Red Bull, having impressed the bosses in Milton Keynes with his rookie results for Racing Bulls. The 20-year-old was the second-highest scoring Red Bull family driver in 2025 on 51 points, as Max Verstappen took 421, Lawson 38 and Tsunoda 33.

Does Isack Hadjar have the right mindset for his promotion to Red Bull in 2026?

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Isack Hadjar admits his qualifying ‘abilities’ sometimes fall short of his ‘expectations’

Helmut Marko called Hadjar “embarrassing” after he crashed on the formation lap for his F1 debut in the Australian GP. But the Parisian more than bounced back to get his promotion to Red Bull. Hadjar got his first F1 podium in the Dutch Grand Prix, with P3 from P4 on the grid.

READ MORE: Who is 2026 Red Bull F1 driver Isack Hadjar? Everything you need to know

Hadjar set his best qualifying result of the 2025 season at Zandvoort during one of his 16 Q3 appearances over the 24 Grands Prix. He even bowed out of qualifying in Q1 only twice. But Hadjar admits that his “abilities” in qualifying still sometimes fell short of his “expectations”.

Hadjar said, via quotes by RACER: “I just noticed that my expectations and what I was willing to do was sometimes too high for the abilities I have at the moment.

“In qualifying, I’m always mad because I didn’t get the perfect lap. I didn’t maximise every corner [or] every braking [point]. There’s always something missing.”

Isack Hadjar made the sixth-most Q3 appearances during the 2025 F1 season

Will Isack Hadjar suffer the same fate as Pierre Gasly at Red Bull?

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Hadjar often showed brilliant single-lap speed in qualifying across his rookie F1 season with Racing Bulls in 2025. Only Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri (24), Verstappen, George Russell and Charles Leclerc (23) had more Q3 appearances than Hadjar and Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s 16.

Only Norris, Piastri, Leclerc, Russell (0) and Verstappen (1) also penned fewer Q1 exits than Hadjar and Fernando Alonso (2) in 2025. Tsunoda bowed out in Q1 seven times over his 22 races with Red Bull, while Lawson had two Q1 exits with Red Bull and five with Racing Bulls.

Hadjar only bowed out of qualifying during Q1 in 2025 with P16 at the Italian Grand Prix and P20 at the United States Grand Prix. The Parisian missed out on a Q2 place at Monza by just 0.080 seconds and did not advance from Q1 at COTA after crashing before he set a lap time.