Hadjar hits new F1 heights after ‘best lap’ of career at Dutch GP

Jamie Woodhouse 30 Aug 2025 4:07 PM

Isack Hadjar

Isack Hadjar had a day to remember at the Dutch Grand Prix, as he secured a sensational fourth place on the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

The pole position battle, as expected, came down to the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, the former winning out. But, few expected Hadjar to put his Racing Bulls car on the second row of the grid, where he will have Max Verstappen – potentially his future Red Bull teammate – for company.

Isack Hadjar: A star is born at Zandvoort?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

By his own admission, Hadjar often fails to be cheerful enough about his own achievements. That was not the case at Zandvoort.

Fourth represents Hadjar’s best qualifying result yet in Formula 1, and he gave himself the due credit.

“Very happy,” he declared to the media, including PlanetF1.com. “Finally, I’m quite satisfied with what I did. It was a good job from me.”

Asked where that pace came from, Hadjar added: “To be honest, that was the car being exactly like I wanted. It was responding really well, especially on that final lap.

“Probably we got a bit lucky with the wind gust. I don’t know, we need to look at the data. But, yeah, I put in an amazing lap, and it sticks, because the car was great.

“It’s probably the best lap I’ve had this year, because it’s a very hard track, really demanding. And, you know, I put it all on the line, especially that final corner.

“I thought I did pretty well there to actually gain one more tenth.”

Expanding further on the influence of a wind gust, Hadjar said: “Honestly, it’s a horrible feeling when you’re in the car and you’re being hit by one. You can lose up to two-tenths in a single corner.

“Very annoying, so you need to be a bit lucky.”