While he fights for the Formula 2 crown, Isack Hadjar is keeping a watchful eye on developments as Red Bull evaluates its Formula 1 driver line-ups.
Officially, Sergio Perez was confirmed alongside Max Verstappen at the Milton Keynes-based squad, while Yuki Tsunoda was announced as staying at RB and Liam Lawson is widely expected to be given a seat as he has been impressing lately as Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement.
However, Perez has scored only 48 points in the last 15 grands prix compared to Verstappen’s 257, and his consistent underperformance has led Red Bull to pursue other avenues for the future – which could entail promoting Lawson to the main outfit, or a shock hire in rookie Franco Colapinto bypassing RB to join Verstappen in his first full F1 season.
The Red Bull Junior Team’s leading driver, Hadjar has been contending for the F2 title and is hoping that the situation will pan out favourably.
“I would say my chances are alive, at least,” the Frenchman tells Autosport.
“Obviously, it's just not down to me.
“There's a lot going on at RB and Red Bull, anything can happen. And obviously, I'm next in line. So that's just a fact.
“I don't know what decisions they're gonna take, but hopefully I'm here and trying to be ready for next year in any case.”
Hadjar’s case may be helped by Colapinto and Oliver Bearman impressing on their F1 cameos this year despite their inexperience, given he had been outperforming both of them in the feeder series.
“It shows that our generation is good,” the 20-year-old claims.
“For a while, we thought that experience was the main thing, and then you can't jump in and beat the guy that has 10 years in F1 – but in fact, you can. If you're fast, you're fast. So they did good for us, showing what the F2 grid can produce going to F1.”
Yet, Hadjar willingly admits he wouldn’t necessarily be able to perform at that same level due to having very little F1 testing experience, despite his extensive use of Red Bull’s ‘quite shockingly close to real life’ simulator.
“I think if I had to jump into an F1 car right now, it would be much more difficult than it was for Ollie or Liam,” he says.
“My experience so far in F1 has been three FP1s, and the run plans are always quite limited with laps.”
Colapinto has already scored twice for Williams, and Hadjar begrudgingly acknowledges Red Bull is looking for “a driver that’s fast, and he proves that he’s fast”, while keenly pointing out: “I’ve been in [the Red Bull] programme for three years, I’m second in F2, I’m the reserve for the team…”
A brief “that’s how it is” speaks volumes as to the youngster’s opinion regarding the Colapinto avenue.
Hadjar now has two rounds to go in the 2024 F2 season, in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, to grab the title – and most importantly convince Red Bull he’s deserving of a 2025 seat.
After an underwhelming maiden campaign with Hitech, which he concluded only 14th in the standings, Hadjar has claimed four wins so far this year.
“I just found myself much more comfortable working with Campos than at that time with Hitech,” he explains. “I had a great, great season in F3 [with Hitech], really good memories.
“But then going into F2, working with different people, I just didn't match at all, and just struggled the whole year. I had speed at times. But I have to say I could have had a much, much better season. I made quite a few mistakes.
“So I would say I improved a lot on maximizing the results, maximizing the potential, and just doing fewer mistakes – and then obviously the overall package has been much better.”
However, Hadjar has been hampered by a string of disappointing results of late, losing the championship lead following point-less Monza and Baku rounds – he suffered a slow pitstop and a sluggish start in Italy before crashing out from the Azerbaijan qualifying session, which impacted his whole weekend.
“We had a really tough season so far, with too many downs and mechanical failures,” he concedes.
“Looking back at my championship, I felt like every time we had a good weekend, we were on the podium on Sunday, or winning. So that's why I'm really happy about my performance.
“I felt I always maximised what I had, and that's pretty much how I made my points really on Sunday.” He’s not wrong, having scored no fewer than 145 of his 165 points in feature races.
Regardless, what if Hadjar doesn’t get that F1 seat next season and needs to spend the year as a reserve driver for Red Bull’s teams?
“I mean, I would not be okay with that, obviously, because you want to drive,” Hadjar asserts.
“But if that is what it has to be, then I'm going to do it and think ahead.”
