Max Verstappen snubs Isack Hadjar as he names the two 2025 rookies with the most ‘potential’

Follow us on Google Discover

Max Verstappen will have another new teammate at Red Bull next year. Isack Hadjar becomes the latest academy product to step up to F1’s most daunting seat.

Hadjar’s promotion increasingly looked like an inevitability as the season progressed. Virtually everyone in the world of F1 agreed that it would happen after he scored his first career podium at the Dutch GP in August.

In fact, it has recently emerged that Helmut Marko told Hadjar he was joining Red Bull after that race in Zandvoort. Laurent Mekies and Red Bull sports boss Oliver Mintzlaff needed a little more time but the case to promote the Frenchman was overwhelming as Yuki Tsunoda struggled.

How would you rate Isack Hadjar’s 2025 Formula 1 rookie season out of 10?

Comment

Like or Comment

Have your say Sign-in now for free

Hadjar was the second top scorer among the Red Bull-backed drivers with 51 points and also impressed in qualifying, where he made 16 Q3 appearances – more than Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.

Max Verstappen’s praise for Kimi Antonelli and Gabriel Bortoleto

Hadjar was one of five rookies for the 2025 season, along with Kimi Antonelli, Gabriel Bortoleto, Oliver Bearman and Jack Doohan. Doohan lasted just six races before fellow youngster Franco Colapinto replaced him.

Asked which of the rookies impressed him most, Verstappen told Viaplay: “That’s difficult to say. They’ve all made an impression at certain moments and they’ve also made their mistakes as rookies, that’s the way it is.”

But when pressed on who among them is the ‘fastest’, Verstappen named Bortoleto and Antonelli ahead of Hadjar.

Bortoleto may have finished 19th in the standings at Sauber but he was a match for highly-rated veteran Nico Hulkenberg and bagged a top-six finish at the Hungarian GP.

Antonelli, meanwhile, started and finished strongly either side of a mid-season slump. He ended the year with three podium finishes to his name.

“I think Bortoleto, in terms of potential, together with Kimi are the raw talents,” said Verstappen.

Max Verstappen has already hinted that Red Bull should sign Gabriel Bortoleto

Verstappen has been a mentor for this year’s rookie crop, all of whom have been able to approach him for advice at various points.

He offered Antonelli reassurance after the Qatar GP, where Red Bull initially suggested that the Mercedes driver had let title rival Lando Norris through on purpose – an allegation they later retracted.

Verstappen’s relationship with Bortoleto is even closer. They race together online between F1 weekends.

Even before he reached the top level, Verstappen told Red Bull to ‘keep an eye’ on Bortoleto. His Audi contract expires at the end of next year but one imagines the F1 newcomers will be keen to extend it promptly.