5 Aug 2026
Promoted straight into the seat alongside Max Verstappen for his first full season, Isack Hadjar sits eighth in the drivers' championship at the summer break — outscoring more experienced midfield rivals and doing it in one of the grid's least forgiving cars to learn in.
Isack Hadjar heads into Formula 1's summer break eighth in the 2026 drivers' championship on 68 points, in his first full season racing for Red Bull Racing alongside Max Verstappen. It is a result that has drawn notice less for its championship position than for the circumstances behind it: Hadjar was promoted straight into one of the grid's two most exposed seats as a rookie, with no gradual introduction at a smaller team first.
His results across the year's biggest tests have been consistent rather than spectacular, which in a rookie is arguably the harder trick. Hadjar finished fourth at Monaco from fifth on the grid, sixth at Barcelona, sixth again at Spa-Francorchamps after starting 21st — a recovery drive through the field — and sixth once more at the Hungaroring. Across those four rounds alone he outscored both Racing Bulls drivers and every midfield rival bar Verstappen himself.
Reflecting on the season's opening months, Formula1.com gathered its writers' views on the standout performers of the year; among them, correspondent James Hinchcliffe pointed to Hadjar 'holding steady in the second Red Bull' as one of the season's notable stories, grouping his form alongside the midfield gains being made elsewhere on the grid. It is a measured way of describing a driver who has spent his rookie year racing wheel-to-wheel with a four-time world champion for a team with a low tolerance for mistakes, and has, so far, mostly avoided them.
With 68 points to Verstappen's 109, Hadjar is not simply making up the numbers alongside his teammate — he sits ahead of far more experienced drivers, including both Racing Bulls entries and the entire Alpine line-up, in a car built for a title fight neither Red Bull driver has yet been able to have in 2026.
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