Hadjar calls Verstappen 'prime of the prime' after first months as Red Bull team-mate

Isack Hadjar has described sharing a garage with Max Verstappen as a privilege rather than a burden, telling Formula 1’s Beyond The Grid podcast that the four-time world champion is operating at the peak of his powers — and that being exposed to that standard early in his career is something he considers a gift.

“I know I’m probably facing the prime of the prime of the level you can achieve in Formula 1, and he’s just next to me in the garage,” the 22-year-old said. “So to experience this at my age, this early in my career, I’m one very, very lucky guy.”

Hadjar, who recently signed a contract extension to remain at Red Bull through the 2027 season, acknowledged that his single-lap pace has held up reasonably well against Verstappen. The gap, he explained, lies in the Dutchman’s almost mechanical consistency across an entire race weekend.

“He has no peak. It’s flat. It’s up there, but it’s flat,” Hadjar said. “Let’s say on a track you have 15 corners and maybe there’s one corner you master, or two, three, four, five corners you do really, really well. But he matches you there and then on the others he keeps that same level. And then over the lap, he makes the lap time difference.”

The French-Algerian driver was candid about what he finds most difficult to replicate. It is not any single element of Verstappen’s driving, he said, but the absence of any weak moment across a session or a race.

“He doesn’t really have low moments. He makes no mistakes. He’s always at the right time, the right place. He creates his own luck a bit,” Hadjar added. “I wouldn’t say I look at the data and I’m like, ‘I can’t reproduce this’. It’s how often he does it. That makes the big difference at the end.”

Despite the scale of the challenge, Hadjar insisted the experience is energising rather than daunting. “I love going into every session knowing that he’s going to set a benchmark that I need to match and I need to overcome. It’s just exciting. It changes everything I’ve had my whole career.”

Hadjar graduated to Red Bull’s senior team for the 2025 season after winning the Formula 2 championship, replacing Sergio Pérez. His contract extension through 2027 signals the team’s confidence that he can develop into a long-term partner for Verstappen.