Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar was feeling “comfortable” rather than on the ropes when he had the “privilege” of driving Max Verstappen’s RB20.

Verstappen has developed the reputation of a team-mate killer at Red Bull over recent years, with Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon struggling alongside him, while Sergio Perez is now facing the exit after an underwhelming F1 2024 campaign in which he finished 285 points behind Verstappen, who secured his fourth World Championship in as many years.

Isack Hadjar found Max Verstappen’s RB20 ‘amazing to drive’

Perez felt the RB20 upgrades which arrived during the season were to his detriment, as the theme of a Verstappen team-mate struggling to extract performance from the second Red Bull returned.

And Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar – who finished runner-up in the 2024 Formula 2 Championship – got the chance to experience Verstappen’s RB20 during FP1 at the Abu Dhabi season finale.

Speaking to Sky F1, it was put to him that “everyone say it’s a pretty tricky one to drive”, but Hadjar did not experience that.

“I felt it was amazing to drive, to be honest,” he replied.

“Because, you know, I’m still new to it, and every time I jump in an F1 car, it’s really special.

“These cars are a bit ridiculous in high-speed, like surreal, and yeah, still, even though I’m new to it, I could feel there was some things to improve on the slow-speed area, but I really felt comfortable, especially on the long run.

“I’ll say it was a real privilege to be in his seat, the World Champion’s car, and yeah, hope to be doing that soon.”

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After his FP1 outing, focus for Hadjar switched back to his F2 title challenge, as he explained the difficulties of moving between machinery.

He ultimately fell 22.5 points short of Sauber/Audi F1-bound Gabriel Bortoleto, who secured the achievement of winning the F3 and F2 titles in back-to-back seasons.

“Honestly, yesterday was really tiring, having to go from F2 to F1 to F2 again,” Hadjar admitted.

“And the hardest thing was to get used to the F2 car.

“Yesterday, I have done, to be fair, a lot of laps in the F1 [car]. I really got used to it by the end. And having to jump back in the F2 [car], it felt too different.

“And you know how it goes in F2 is you have two push laps on the first run to have a feel, and then we had to deliver on the first push, second run. So I felt like it was not enough for me. I gave it my best, a tenth off pole, so it was a really good effort, but not enough.”

Hadjar could yet find himself joining Bortoleto on the F1 2025 grid with a Racing Bulls seat potentially up for grabs, as Red Bull plot out their line-ups for next season.

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