Hadjar returns from wrist fracture with podium, contract and a joke about his couch

Isack Hadjar marked his return from a wrist fracture with a podium finish at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, stepping back into the Red Bull cockpit after sitting out the Dutch, Italian and Spanish Grands Prix. The 22-year-old French-Algerian driver admitted he has not fully regained his range of motion but said the wrist is “good enough” to compete.

“No,” Hadjar said when asked on F1’s official Beyond The Grid podcast whether he had full movement back. “Good enough. I had a whole day on the sim on Monday. I did over 100 laps.”

Hadjar said he has chosen to adapt to the limitation rather than modify his equipment. “The priority for me is the feeling I have in the car and the pain, we deal with it. I don’t want to change anything on my steering wheel. I’ve come to a point now where I’m fully adapted to what I do. I don’t want anything to change.”

The fracture came as a shock to a driver who had never broken a bone before. “The next day, when I woke up, never in my mind I thought it would be a fracture because I felt limited and I had pain, but I had never broken anything in my whole life,” he said. “So when he told me I’m out for this number of weeks, I was like, ‘Yeah, but I have a race in five days, so what do we do now?’ So yeah, it was a big shock.”

Despite the enforced absence, Hadjar’s time away from the car proved unexpectedly fruitful. His Monaco Grand Prix result was reinstated as a podium finish during the layoff, and he secured a contract extension with Red Bull — prompting the driver to joke that his recovery period may have been his most productive stretch of the season.

“I think I did a very good job on the couch because I got a podium on the couch and I got a contract,” he said. “It’s what I wanted. I’m not here for a wild card or anything. I’m here for the long term and to have the trust of the team during this tough period for me, I’m very grateful.”