Isack Hadjar’s promotion to Red Bull after just a single rookie season in Formula 1 has inevitably triggered debate about whether it is too early for him to face the pressures of a top-line seat.

After all, with the team having burned through so many young drivers in recent years, Hadjar knows that he is going to have to buck what’s become a historic trend of failure.

But if there is one thing we learned about Hadjar in F1, it is that he is someone who does things in his own unique style. And that manifests itself in regularly defying expectations.

His podium finish at the Dutch Grand Prix was the undoubted high-point of his 2025, and served notice to the outside world that he was a shoo-in for promotion to the main Red Bull squad.

But the first signs of the trajectory he was on came much earlier than that – and just a few weeks after his F1 career had started in the worst possible way with that spin on the formation lap of the season-opening Australian GP.

The weekend that made his bosses properly sit up and take notice was round three in Japan. For those on the outside, his eighth place had gone relatively under the radar as much of the focus within the Red Bull empire was on the Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda swap.

While not headline-grabbing, it was the instant speed on Hadjar’s first visit to the challenging Suzuka – and more particularly how he adapted his driving in the race - that left a big impression on the Racing Bulls pitwall.

As team boss Alan Permane told The Race: “He was just outstanding. Really, really outstanding.

“He only finished eighth, so not a turning point, but it was where you felt 'OK, he is the real deal'.”

Hadjar’s pace in qualifying to take seventh had been confirmation that he was instantly at home in F1 machinery. But it was what he did in the race that really stood out for Permane.

“It is a very tough track but the tyres were very easy to manage, and you could push absolutely flat out,” added Permane. “He did half the race completely flat out. I know at the end of the race he was destroyed, but drove ever so well.

“But it was also the first time we really started seeing him when we were trying to coach him during the race.

“As he started to pick up a bit of rear deg, we said, ‘OK, try and use the front tyres a little bit more’. And we saw him respond.

“He changed his driving style to alter the tyre degradation. That is really, really smart in only your third race.”

Self-criticism

Hadjar’s qualities that so impressed Red Bull went beyond just that natural pace and the ability to handle race management. There were aspects of his attitude that stood out, too – even if they seemed slightly unusual.

Reflecting on the qualities that he has seen from Hadjar, Permane said: "What's impressed me is, firstly, his pace.

“You can tick every single other box. But if you haven't got pace, then it's over, isn't it?

“The other things are, he listens. He learns very quickly. He's happy to accept advice from people, from his engineers, for example, on what he should do.

“He knows he doesn't know everything. So he's happy to learn. He's very self-critical. And I've said this many times before - sometimes too self-critical, honestly.

“When things aren't going well, the first place he looks at is, 'What can I do better? What should I do better to make things better?'

"Certainly, I've worked with drivers in the past where their absolute first port call is the car. 'It must be something with the car. It can't be me.' So that's refreshing.”

Permane makes an interesting point that this self-criticism we see from some drivers, also including Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris, is not actually a sign of weakness and doubt. Instead, it is a characteristic borne of confidence.

“It’s a great strength to be confident enough to say, ‘What can I do better?' Other drivers who are maybe more insecure will say: ‘Well, it can't be me. It must be the car.’

“It doesn't sound like [the one who is self-critical is the] confident one, and the other is the non-confident one. But it is, believe me, when they're confident of their ability to say, 'what can I do better?'

“I think that's a really strong trait to have as a driver, and that's what I see with Isack."

Observing Hadjar from the outside, through his heated radio messages and frustrations that sometimes boil up in front of the TV cameras, it is easy to get the impression that he is constantly angry with himself.

Permane says that such a suggestion is wrong – although he does admit that there are improvements the youngster can make with his own internal targeting.

“It is definitely something he can work on, and he knows that,” Permane added. “Yes, he does get frustrated when things go wrong with himself or with the car.

“Of course, it's upsetting to lose strong results – and he does get frustrated like that - but he’s not like that in engineering meetings.

“He calms down very quickly and does a proper download debrief, and these things aren’t mentioned.”

Easy car

One interesting aspect in seeing how Hadjar adjusts to life at Red Bull does not relate to the external pressures, though.

It will be in whether he has underneath him the kind of benign-handling car that last year’s Racing Bulls was.

It is well-known that many of Max Verstappen’s team-mates have struggled to get comfortable with handling characteristics that trigger the super loose rear end that the four-time champion is well able to cope with.

At Racing Bulls, the team had worked hard to ensure that its relatively inexperienced drivers were not going to be hampered by a tricky car that had a narrow set-up window.

As Permane reflected: “I think we stepped up with a much more solid car.

“It was a much more drivable, much more user-friendly car, and that's something that we worked consciously, and we worked hard on.

“We kind of learned some lessons, some tough lessons [in 2024] with the car, and the aero guys did a really good job in sort of correcting those hardships. And we applied those- not to say 'rules', but those things that we've learned about the car.”

Hadjar himself thinks the progress he made last year was not just down to the job he did and the kind of car underneath him, but owed a lot to the environment of Racing Bulls - and some help from one of its long-time drivers.

“I couldn't wish for a better team to start my F1 career with,” he said. “They're just used to forming kids. I owe it to Pierre [Gasly], as we spent most of the winter together, and he had my head before going to Bahrain.

“That's where the job was done. That's also why I got used to it very quickly and adapted very quickly to it so, as a driver outside the track, I've made huge, huge steps.”

The clean slate at Red Bull

For Hadjar, there is no certainty about what he will have underneath him in 2026 – and it’s far too early for anyone to judge if the RB22 is something that is more friendly than its predecessors.

But after a rapid rise through the ranks, what stands in Hadjar’s favour is that he is not being handed a car that has been moulded around Verstappen’s style for the past few seasons.

That there is a clean slate design, and one that will need honing and improving, gives him a best chance to give his own input and steer things his way.

As he explained at the end of last year: “It is a new car. It's not like Max knows the car, right? It all starts from scratch.

“So I feel very, very lucky in the way I'm coming to Red Bull. It's going to be very beneficial and if the car has to go in one direction, then I'll be here as well and maybe it's from my input. So yeah, I'm excited.”