Major Isack Hadjar future hint as Red Bull F1 2026 timeline revealed

Isack Hadjar has been praised as “incredible” by Racing Bulls’ boss Peter Bayer, as he ruled out any chance of a 2025 Red Bull swap.

The French-Algerian driver has had a stellar rookie season so far, bouncing back from a first-round heartbreak due to an unforced error to score 22 points and occupying 13th in the Drivers’ Championship at the summer break.

Peter Bayer: Isack Hadjar is ‘incredible’

Hadjar is the second-highest placed rookie in the standings as Formula 1 goes into a two-week breather, only bested by Kimi Antonelli but with the Italian competing in a top-four machine for Mercedes.

The young Frenchman, who hails from Paris, has staked a claim to be regarded as F1’s best rookie this year, with even the notoriously difficult-to-impress Helmut Marko pleading this case.

“I mean, definitely Isack Hadjar. He, for me, is the most impressive rookie,” Marko said during an appearance on The Inside Track podcast earlier this summer.

With such impressive performances, it’s understandable that Hadjar’s name would quickly become linked with a potential promotion to the Red Bull Racing squad, leading CEO Peter Bayer to joke to German publication Bild that, “He should get to know the whole business by the end of 2026. Until then, we’ll just have to handcuff him!”

Speculation that Hadjar could be in line to replace Yuki Tsunoda for 2026 hasn’t died down, however, as the Japanese driver, while showing improvement, is yet to find form in the RB21 alongside Max Verstappen.

It has led to some paddock whispers that Tsunoda could even be replaced before the season end, in favour of Hadjar, in order to give Red Bull the chance to make a full evaluation of its options for the F1 2026 season, as Arvid Lindblad has climbed the ranks to knock on the door of an F1 promotion.

But Bayer has poured cold water on the idea of Hadjar stepping up from Racing Bulls before the end of this year, saying that there is a desire to maintain a sense of calm internally at the Red Bull teams off the back of the driver turbulence at the start of the year.

“I was joking, honestly!” he laughed when asked by PlanetF1.com about his wanting to keep Hadjar “in handcuffs” at Racing Bulls.

“We have strong alignment internally that we need to go through this year calmly, with everyone focusing on their jobs.

“I’m sure that, post-summer break, discussions will start about 2026, but honestly, I dare to say that in ’25, we all want to keep it calm and, talking about Isack, give him the chance to grow, to learn.

“Honestly, he is incredible.”

Recounting a story from qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix, the weekend in which our interview took place, Bayer said, “I’m still struggling to believe it, but it’s what happened.

“I was listening to the radio when he was coming in, the umbilical in.

“His race engineer [Pierre Hamelin] said: ‘Look, Isack, you’re losing about half a tenth in Turn 6’.

“Isack said to him: ‘Can you be more precise?’

“Pierre said, ‘Yes, I can. You’re losing 0.035 of a second in that turn.’ And Isaac said: ‘OK, then I know what to do.’ [And he did it].”

Hadjar started his year under a cloud, having crashed all by himself on the formation lap in Australia, but quickly shrugged it off to become a regular points scorer. Team insiders have commented to me on how the young Frenchman has clearly grown in confidence and a sense of belonging in F1 since the start of the year, and Bayer said a bright future awaits Hadjar.

“For me, it’s as simple as that – his capacity of driving,” he said, when asked about how his young charge has progressed through the season.

“Honestly, I think we’ll see great things from him.

“His mind is just working, asking, growing. Isaac is a great kid. He’s great, but he needs this year with us, and everybody agrees that’s what we should do.”

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What about Red Bull’s other drivers?

In the second Racing Bulls car, Liam Lawson has found serious momentum in the middle portion of the season, having bounced back from a difficult start to the year.

Racing with Red Bull in the first two rounds, Lawson was pushed back to the sister team in favour of the far more experienced Yuki Tsunoda following the Chinese Grand Prix but, having not had any testing or experience with the VCARB02, took until the Monaco Grand Prix to score his first points.

However, he has since proven consistency, scoring two eighth-places and a season-best of sixth in Austria to score 20 points in total – just two behind Hadjar. It’s worth remembering that, despite being seen as more experienced, Lawson has only just completed a full season’s worth of racing due to his periods as a substitute at the Faenza-based squad, and is only 11 Grand Prix starts ahead of Hadjar.

For all intents and purposes, Lawson has only just shaken off his rookie status, meaning he’s all but matching the French driver’s form. Lawson has spoken about how he believes his confidence was never dented by how his F1 2025 season started, and Bayer offered his take on things when asked about how he’s seen Lawson evolve this year.

“Confidence is something that is very personal. When I spoke to Liam, he always said his confidence was never [down],” he said.

“He’s done this all his life. Quoting what he said to the media is, ‘I’ve done this all my life. It’s a tough business.’

“I hate to talk about luck and not being lucky, but he was unlucky on a couple of occasions. When he was on a good lap, somebody would be in front of him, somebody would call for a yellow, somebody would call for a red.

“Now, he is fun, happy, like in his best days. So, if ever he was not, today, he certainly is.”

Illustrating how difficult it can be to step into a new car, Tsunoda is yet to find his feet at Red Bull. A ninth-place and two 10th-place finishes are his best Grand Prix results this year, meaning the Japanese driver is actually behind both Racing Bulls drivers despite ostensibly having faster machinery under him.

“Yes, I would lie [if I said I wasn’t],” he said of whether he’s surprised by the extent of Tsunoda’s struggles, having worked directly with him throughout 2024 and into the early stages of ’25.

“I’ve seen him, the potential, his performances, and his mindset. I’ve seen his physical preparation.

“I saw a Yuki as strong as I’ve never seen him before, but everything else, honestly, I don’t know.

“I haven’t spoken to Yuki about why it is [so difficult].

“I think he just needs time. I think it’s probably just a very difficult car to drive, because that’s the difference to our car. Ours is much more forgiving, wider window, but it’s not as fast. That’s the difference.”

This begs a major question of Racing Bulls, which operates as a fully autonomous entry from Red Bull Racing, despite sharing common ownership. If, during the car’s development, a path is found that offers more speed but makes the car more difficult to drive, is the performance or the driveability more important to the team, given its remit of being an incubator of talent for the sister team?

“This is my non-engineering Peter Bayer analysis,” he said, having pondered the question.

“I think, with these ground effect cars, driveability is performance, because they are monsters where, if you make one tiny mistake and you lose downforce, you go into a corner and you have understeer that then goes into oversteer.

“You have days where you think everything’s all right, and you go out. Then, instead of sunshine, you have shadow, you’re three tenths down.

“Next session, you have the sun, you’re half a second up.

“Then you go to a track that has a different asphalt, and you’re nowhere.

“Let’s take Alex Dunne in the McLaren in Austria. That’s driveability. For me, it’s driveability on a next level. That means you can put a junior into the car, you explain to him the buttons, and off you go.”

With our interview coming to an end, and stability seemingly the preferred option for the rest of this season, the big question is whether or not Lindblad will secure an anticipated F1 seat for next year.

If he does, this means either Tsunoda, Hadjar, or Lawson must leave in order to make room, and, from an external perspective, it would appear that Tsunoda is the most likely to lose out. This would open the door for a Hadjar promotion, leaving a vacancy alongside Lawson for the highly-rated Lindblad to slot into.

So, where does Lindblad feature in the plans for next year?

“You know that we ran him in a TPC in Italy, basically, he is a great talent, and we build him up like we did with Isaac last year,” Bayer smiles.

“Whether he will be in a car or not, that’s honestly far away.

“For me now, the focus is on handcuffing the guys I have, going through the year, and, at the end of the year, we’ll see where we are and what’s possible.”

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