Isack Hadjar says he feels ‘more comfortable’ at Red Bull than he did at Racing Bulls

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Isack Hadjar feels more at home at Red Bull than he did at former team at Racing Bulls. Hadjar is preparing for his first season alongside Max Verstappen after his winter promotion.

Liam Lawson occupied the seat at the start of 2025 but was demoted after just two races. Max Verstappen predicted that Lawson’s results would improve at Racing Bulls, and he was proven right.

Lawson says he wasn’t given enough time to improve, but he may well have benefited from losing the seat. Replacement Yuki Tsunoda dropped off the grid at the end of the year.

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The Japanese driver finished 17th in the championship on 33 points, five fewer than Lawson and 18 fewer than Hadjar. Unsurprisingly, Tsunoda wishes he could have driven the Racing Bulls car.

Isack Hadjar says Red Bull take F1 ‘a lot’ more seriously than Racing Bulls

The recent trend is clear: young drivers have performed better at Racing Bulls than Red Bull, even though the car is ostensibly inferior. The trend arguably dates back to Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon between 2019 and 2020.

However, Hadjar insists he’s more ‘comfortable’ after making the step up. The ‘family’ atmosphere at Racing Bulls was ‘amazing’, but Red Bull share the Frenchman’s ‘commitment to winning’.

Hadjar could already see the difference when he was taking part in FP1 sessions for the two teams in 2023 and 2024. He has been part of the Red Bull academy for four and a half years.

“I’m going to be honest,” he said. “Last year, it felt like a family team. The atmosphere was amazing, but you go to Red Bull and you feel like it’s more serious.

Is Hadjar a better fit for Red Bull than Lawson or Tsunoda?

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“The working approach is slightly different. As a guy like me who really enjoys the hard work, I felt a bit more comfortable here.

“I’m very, very happy working with these guys who are very committed to winning. I’m very happy to be here. I’m very lucky.

“Even when I was doing my FP1 outings when I was still in F2, already I could tell.

“I don’t feel like I jumped into a brand-new team. There are people I’ve worked with over the years from F3 to F1. It made the switch easier as well.”

Jolyon Palmer reacts to Isack Hadjar’s eye-opening Red Bull answer

Like his teammate Verstappen, Hadjar has been strikingly honest in his interviews ever since he reached F1. But Jolyon Palmer believes he’s absolutely right about the difference between the two teams.

“There was a moment I thought he was going to be too honest in that interview!” Palmer remarked. “A winning mentality vs a family mentality.

“That’s true, isn’t it, the size of the team and the ambitions of the team [are different].”

Ralf Schumacher thinks Hadjar has an opportunity this year given Verstappen’s well-publicised gripes with the new regulations. There is optimism that the rules reset will play into his hands.

Hadjar crashed during the Barcelona Shakedown, and while he has faced further disruption in Bahrain, this has been down to unreliability rather than his own mistakes.