23/06/2025 20:00
Liam Lawson's brief Red Bull tenure is not a subject Isack Hadjar
feels comfortable broaching with his Racing Bulls team-mate. The
New Zealander was sent back to the joint-team's second squad after
only two disappointing rounds alongside Max Verstappen, with Yuki
Tsunoda promoted in his place. It took Lawson a while to
re-acclimatise to life at the Faenza outfit, with Hadjar
consistently out-performing him across the eight rounds they have
spent together. With Tsunoda also struggling to adapt to the RB21,
as Lawson did, it has vaulted the French driver into prime position
to partner Verstappen in Milton Keynes next season. However, Hadjar
claims he does not have any understanding as to why both the
Japanese driver and Lawson encountered such difficulties at Red
Bull, revealing it is not something he has discussed with the
23-year-old since he returned to Racing Bulls. "It's not something
we talk about because... I mean, I don't want to ask him about it,
because it's a tough subject to talk about," Hadjar told media
including RacingNews365 . "I don't really know and, yeah, we didn't
talk much about it." Hadjar on where he can still make progress
Hadjar is widely considered the stand-out rookie driver in F1 this
season, having collected 21 points across the opening 10 rounds and
thus far avoided being knocked out of qualifying in Q1.
Nonetheless, he maintains there are things he still needs time to
better understand. "I think I haven't experienced a tricky car
enough," the 20-year-old explained. "So far my car has been very
consistent and not the hardest to drive. So I didn't have weekends
where the car felt terrible. "I don't have experience on trying to
bring a car from zero to high in a single weekend, so I think maybe
on the technical aspect as well, I can still make progress
understanding what an F1 car needs to go faster and so on. "I think
raw speed, you have it or not, but there's more outside of it."
