Isack Hadjar claims its good to have Max Verstappen by his side

Maybe Hadjar will change his mind once racing begins and Verstappen starts doing what he does best, pounding his teammate, but for now the situation seems to be fine for the 21-year-old.

Speaking to the media in testing in Bahrain, Hadjar was asked about the dynamic with Verstappen; he responded: “The work with Max has been very good—he's been very open so far, so it’s good to have him by my side.”

After just one rookie season with Red Bull Racing's junior team, Racing Bulls, Hadjar was promoted to replace Yuki Tsunoda, the latest casualty of the Red Bull driver program.

But Hadjar claims the move was seamless, as he is familiar with the team, while Laurent Mekies was his boss at Racing Bulls before he replaced Christian Horner at Red Bull Racing.

“It doesn’t really feel like jumping into a new team, to be honest,” Hadjar maintained. “I’ve been doing FP1s for this team already back in 2023, 2024—I [was] signed in 2021 [to the Red Bull Junior Team].

“At the end of the day, I’m working with engineers that I’ve known for a while now. I’ve been on sim support sessions with them for the team, so it made the transition a lot easier, and also having Laurent as a leader is great.

“I made my debut in Formula 1 with him—stepping into my second season with him is good, so it’s been very smooth. I’m very lucky," he insisted.

With testing now done, the focus shifts to the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 6-8.

Hadjar doesn't have fond memories of his debut F1 race in Melbourne in 2025 when he crashed before even the race started in wet conditions.

But his focus is already on other matters this year, he explained: “The goal for Melbourne is to make the most of the learnings, go back on the sim, correlate all that, and try to make sure that the direction we need to go in is clear.”

Hadjar recently admitted that he is targeting a first win in F1 this season. Can he achieve that?