Isack Hadjar has to deal with Max Verstappen's "I'm going to crush you" mentality

That challenge is basically being the teammate of Max Verstappen, a driver known over the course of his F1 career for having teammates for breakfast.

Hadjar has impressed in his rookie campaign with Racing Bulls, and despite a tough start with a crash on his formation lap in the opening race of the 2025 season in Melbourne, he bounced back and earned a promotion to become a Red Bull Racing driver while also securing his first podium at the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix.

The Milton Keynes squad have recently struggled to find a driver to last alongside Verstappen since they fired Sergio Perez at the end of the 2024 F1 season and since then have gone through Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda before bringing Hadjar in.

Former F1 driver Johnny Herbert believes Hadjar will have his work cut out in his first season as Verstappen's teammate.

He explained why, saying: "You're not going to have a weaker Max Verstappen than we had over the last couple of years! And Max is going to be stronger than he was last year. Anyone coming into Red Bull is very aware of that when they come into the team.

"Max is such a good guy," Hebert said of the Dutchman who recently claimed 2026 is the best time for Hadjar to step up into Red Bull Racing due to the regulations reset and then added: "He's got such a great sense of humor.

"You will feel that sense of humor. But then it will switch; it will switch into being, 'It's about me, I'm going to beat you. I'm going to crush you.'

"That's the mentality that Max has, and that's the mentality that Isack Hadjar has to try and deal with. He has to actually twist that round and actually make it work for you. That's going to be the biggest test for him.

"Isack Hadjar had that very tough start in Australia," Herbert recalled, "but he was able to bounce back.

"I know he started with the crash in Barcelona on the first day [of testing]. They all go through those issues. But I think he has shown a sort of mental strength that he can absorb that pressure.

"He had a lot of pressure when he went into the RB team, and there are those expectations that those teams have.

"But this is on another level where those expectations are there every single session of every single Grand Prix that you go into," Herbert warned.

"He's got a very nice way about him," the Briton went on, speaking of Hadjar to Thunderpick reviews. "He's got a very soft side to him, but that's got to toughen up. And that's probably the biggest thing that he's going to have to work on.

"Max Verstappen is tough as boots, and he's tough as boots every single time you're sitting in a room together, every time you're doing a visit to a sponsor during a race weekend or even away for a race weekend.

"Max has this powerful way of being the focus. You've got to try to take that focus away. Has he [Hadjar] got that ability to do it? Yes, but we are talking about one of the very best, if not the best, that we've ever seen in Formula 1.

"It's a massive challenge for him, and it's really down to him trying to take away the toolbox that Max has at the present time and throwing a few of those extra little tools into your own one.

"I think he's got the talent to be able to do it. But it's when those expectations are so high where you don't have time to really breathe, to relax, because it's so intense.

"And it's that intense side that we probably haven't seen him under as much. This is a totally different world for him," Herbert concluded. (Source: Snabbare)