Is Isack Hadjar Doomed To Be The Next Victim Of The Dreaded Second Red Bull Seat?

This weekend will mark the end of the Formula 1 season as McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri duke it out with Red Bull's Max Verstappen for the World Drivers' Championship. Still, this didn't stop Red Bull from looking to next season and making a massive, albeit expected announcement about their driver lineups.

Verstappen will partner with rookie standout and current Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar. The Frenchman will then be replaced at Racing Bulls by highly-touted 18-year-old Arvid Lindblad, and he will partner with returning Liam Lawson.

This leaves current Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda as the odd man out, but he'll stick with the team as a test and reserve driver.

Of course, we have to go right to the elephant in the room: Is Hadjar the driver who will tame the seat that has become the "Widowmaker" in F1?

Partnering with Max Verstappen isn't just a challenge; it can chase you out of F1 or derail a career.

I mean, let's run through the list real quick:

• Daniel Ricciardo left Red Bull in 2019 and was replaced by Pierre Gasly.
• Gasly lasted only part of the 2019 season, then was replaced by Alex Albon.
• Albon made it the rest of the season and all of 2020, before he was replaced by Sergio Perez.
• Perez drove alongside Verstappen for all of his championships to date, but was dropped ahead of this season (he sat out in 2025, but will be back on the grid with Cadillac in 2026). He was replaced by Liam Lawson.
• Lawson lasted just two Grand Prix and a Sprint Race before he was demoted to Racing Bulls and replaced by Yuki Tsunoda.
• Tsunoda underperformed most of the season and has now been replaced by Hadjar for 2026.

That's a lot of butts in that second seat since 2019, and that's especially true when you consider it was Perez from 2021 through 2024.

So, could Hadjar be the guy?

I think he could.

After one season in F1, is Isack Hadjar ready to tackle one of the most infamous seats in all of motorsports. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)

The Second Seat At Red Bull Is About Not Letting Disappointment Snowball

Anyone who gets into the second seat at Red Bull, one of the best teams in sports' history, knows their way around a race car.

The problem is how any driver is compared to their teammate, and in this case, that teammate is Max Verstappen, a freak of nature behind the wheel.

That's why the issue at Red Bull, by my estimation, was always a psychological one.

READ: MAX VERSTAPPEN TEASES F1 EXIT IF NEW REGULATIONS AREN'T 'FUN'

There will always be setbacks, but the hard thing is not letting those setbacks snowball.

This is where I think Hadjar really excelled this season.

Think back to the first race of the season in Australia. Do you remember how that race went for Isack Hadjar?

It didn't.

That's right, in his F1 debut, he crashed out of the race on the formation lap.

Sure, the conditions were some of the worst we saw all season and caught out some veterans and even former champs, but Hadjar was understandably crushed.

However, he bounced back and qualified seventh in the next Grand Prix in China, and went on to score in five of the first 9 races of the season. Sure, it helped that Racing Bulls had a pretty solid car this season, but imagine having to overcome such a heartbreaking incident before your career even begins.

The point is that Hadjar didn't let the mistakes snowball, and that has been what's befallen just about everyone other Red Bull driver since Ricciardo. One bad weekend turns into two turns into three turns into an entire season.

Is it a small sample size? Sure, but the bounce back from the lowest of lows to P10 in the standings, 51 points on the year, and even a shock podium certainly helped his cause.

The way this went down made Hadjar arguably the most impressive rookie in a year that saw a lot of impressive rookie performances. You had Ollie Bearman and Gabriel Bortoletto doing some great work at Haas and Sauber, respectively, and a back-and-forth but ultimately solid rookie campaign from Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes.

Still, I thought Hadjar shone.

Is it a given that Red Bull has finally found their guy who can hang with Verstappen and make them a legitimate two-car threat at the top of the standings again?

No, it's far from a given.

But when you look at the options, Hadjar is without question the right choice for them in 2026.