While he fights for the Formula 2 crown, Isack Hadjar is keeping a watchful eye on developments as Red Bull evaluates its Formula 1 driver line-ups.
Officially, Sergio Perez was confirmed alongside Max Verstappen at the Milton Keynes-based squad, while Yuki Tsunoda was announced as staying at RB and Liam Lawson is widely expected to be given a seat as he has been impressing lately as Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement.
However, Perez has scored only 48 points in the last 15 grands prix compared to Verstappen’s 257, and his consistent underperformance has led Red Bull to pursue other avenues for the future – which could entail promoting Lawson to the main outfit, or a shock hire in rookie Franco Colapinto bypassing RB to join Verstappen in his first full F1 season.
The Red Bull Junior Team’s leading driver, Hadjar has been contending for the F2 title and is hoping that the situation will pan out favourably.
“I would say my chances are alive, at least,” the Frenchman tells Autosport.
“Obviously, it’s just not down to me.
“There’s a lot going on at RB and Red Bull, anything can happen. And obviously, I’m next in line. So that’s just a fact.
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“I don’t know what decisions they’re gonna take, but hopefully I’m here and trying to be ready for next year in any case.”
Hadjar’s case may be helped by Colapinto and Oliver Bearman impressing on their F1 cameos this year despite their inexperience, given he had been outperforming both of them in the feeder series.
“It shows that our generation is good,” the 20-year-old claims.
“For a while, we thought that experience was the main thing, and then you can’t jump in and beat the guy that has 10 years in F1 – but in fact, you can. If you’re fast, you’re fast. So they did good for us, showing what the F2 grid can produce going to F1.”
Yet, Hadjar willingly admits he wouldn’t necessarily be able to perform at that same level due to having very little F1 testing experience, despite his extensive use of Red Bull’s ‘quite shockingly close to real life’ simulator.
“I think if I had to jump into an F1 car right now, it would be much more difficult than it was for Ollie or Liam,” he says.
“My experience so far in F1 has been three FP1s, and the run plans are always quite limited with laps.”
Colapinto has already scored twice for Williams, and Hadjar begrudgingly acknowledges…
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