Isack Hadjar looks back on his Red Bull debut. The French-Algerian driver is racing for the Austrians for the first time this season, after making his debut last year with sister team Racing Bulls. Max Verstappen’s young teammate admits he was a little nervous to take the second Red Bull seat alongside the world champion, as the difference between Verstappen and his teammates was significant.
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Isack Hadjar is Max Verstappen’s teammate for the first time this season. The Red Bull driver thus follows in the footsteps of Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Pérez, and Yuki Tsunoda, among others. However, the previous teammates of the four-time world champion each lost out to the Dutchman. Hadjar was therefore nervous before his first meters in the RB22.
“In a way, I was (nervous, ed.), because when you look at the difference between Max’s teammates, you think: ‘Wow, this is weird’,” he said on the official F1 YouTube channel about his move to Red Bull. “But at the same time, I’m realistic. I think: it’s a new regulation, we have the same car. If I believe I’m good, I’m good. And that’s that. So ultimately, everything in the first three races is more or less as I expected.”
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Curse on second Red Bull driver
Hadjar even beat Verstappen in qualifying for the Australian and Japanese Grands Prix, something the Dutchman’s other teammates almost never managed. Although this is partly due to Verstappen’s struggles with the RB22, experts believe that Hadjar has thus put an end to the ‘curse on Red Bull’s second driver’.
“The car is currently very difficult to drive, but I’m not too far behind (Max, ed.) anyway,” Hadjar continues. “And I’m satisfied with how I’ve done in those first three races with the car I have available. I got everything out of it that I could. All in all, it’s going pretty well.”
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