Hadjar ends Red Bull's 13-month second-seat drought with first Monaco podium

Isack Hadjar claimed his second career Formula 1 podium at Monaco on Sunday, delivering Red Bull Racing their first non-Verstappen result since Sergio Perez finished third in Shanghai on 21 April 2024 — a gap of more than 13 months.

The significance of that drought is hard to overstate. Perez’s Shanghai podium had been his fourth in the opening five races of 2024, briefly suggesting Red Bull had finally found the consistent second driver they needed. Red Bull rewarded him with a contract extension, passing over a then-available Carlos Sainz, only to watch Perez’s form disintegrate before the season was out. Liam Lawson replaced him, then vacated the seat for Yuki Tsunoda just two races into 2025. Tsunoda, despite a modest brief — score points, be consistent, avoid crashing — never truly delivered.

By the time Hadjar arrived, the second seat had taken on an almost mythological reputation for destroying careers. The car, built entirely around Verstappen, seemed to offer its other occupant nothing but pain before the inevitable replacement.

Hadjar’s Monaco performance was compelling precisely because it was unremarkable in the best possible sense. He is not generating headlines for the wrong reasons. The bigger narratives of the 2025 season — Kimi Antonelli’s rise, Lewis Hamilton’s revival at Ferrari, George Russell’s title collapse — have largely overshadowed him, and that, paradoxically, may be the point.

For much of Monaco’s opening stint, Hadjar was forced to defend against Russell while managing an engine issue, yet he held his position and converted the opportunity. It is a pattern that separates him from his predecessors in that seat: he absorbs the setbacks — including a crash in Miami that prompted a well-documented emotional outburst — and still finds a way to deliver when the race demands it.

The 21-year-old is doing what you would expect from a talented rookie integrating into a top team alongside a dominant champion: learning, making mistakes, and recovering. That cycle, so straightforward in theory, proved beyond every driver Red Bull placed in that car over the past year.

Whether Hadjar has genuinely broken the curse or merely deferred it remains to be seen. But after 13 months of embarrassment, frustration, and revolving doors, Red Bull finally have a second driver who looks like he belongs.