IsackHadjar

Isack Hadjar was the final driver to be announced for the 2025 season after Red Bull’s dramatic winter reshuffle, which involved Liam Lawson replacing Sergio Perez and the French-Algerian picking up the vacant seat at Racing Bulls.

It has been quite a journey for the Paris-born racer, who built on early promise in karting to reach the top step of the podium during his first full season of single-seater competition and secure a top-three championship classification in his second.

With those foundational French F4 campaigns behind him, Hadjar continued the learning process in Formula Regional European and the F3 Asian series through 2021, before combining Formula Regional Asian and F3 in 2022, when he also became a member of the Red Bull Junior Team.

Fresh from claiming three race victories and finishing fourth in the F3 standings, Hadjar had hoped to kick on when he stepped up to F2 for 2023, only to end the year winless and with some question marks surrounding his future.

Red Bull stuck by the youngster, though, giving him F1 practice outings with the then-named AlphaTauri and the senior team at the Mexican and Abu Dhabi rounds respectively, before the two parties regrouped for another crack at F2.

It was a decision that paid off, with Hadjar winning four races and logging four more podium finishes to challenge new Sauber recruit Gabriel Bortoleto for the 2024 title – narrowly missing out after an agonising stall at the Yas Marina finale.

While he did not quite manage to tick the box of a championship win during his junior career, Hadjar’s eye-catching pace and racecraft all but made up for it and marked him out as the ideal candidate to slot in alongside Yuki Tsunoda.

“He’s definitely a raw talent,” stated Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, when discussing the 20-year-old's impending F1 debut. “He needs a little bit of polishing, but he has the speed.”

Now it remains to be seen if the 19th driver to earn promotion to F1 through Red Bull’s junior programme can prove himself in the top echelon and join the smaller list of names who have carved out lengthy careers.