Racing Bulls staff are using two words to describe Isack Hadjar that will immediately catch Christian Horner’s attention

Isack Hadjar has been the standout rookie of the year so far, having impressed in his results with the midfield outfit Racing Bulls.

Red Bull’s junior team can be a difficult outfit to impress at, given the constant scrutiny from Helmut Marko and Christian Horner who demand extraordinary results to warrant promotion.

Hadjar’s year got off to a poor start when he crashed on the formation lap for the Australian Grand Prix, a moment Marko branded as embarrassing.

Since then, he has bounced back stronger than ever, with regular finishes inside the top 10 places, including a career high of sixth place in Monaco.

Compared to the more experienced Liam Lawson, who was chosen to replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull before the team u-turned after two races, Hadjar has been scoring the bulk of the points for Racing Bulls and put them right in the Constructors’ battle with Haas, Williams, Aston Martin and now Sauber.

He’s making a great case for a promotion to the main team and recent comments from his engineers highlighted by Tom Clarkson on the Beyond the Grid podcast suggest that could come sooner rather than later.

Isack Hadjar displays ‘ferocious intelligence’ according to Racing Bulls engineers

Hadjar’s performances have not gone unnoticed in the F1 paddock, with Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen noting how he’s been impressed.

He is without doubt one of the drivers that Red Bull will be looking at promoting, given how well he’s adapted to F1, even toning down the radio messages he was famous for in F2.

The Frenchman is often referred to as the ‘Petit Prost’ by some because of his calculative nature behind the cockpit, while his engineers also had some words of encouragement when asked by Clarkson.

“The engineers you work with, I spoke to them prior to this interview, and they said you have a ‘ferocious intelligence’, which was how it was phrased to me, so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” said Clarkson.

Hadjar comes from an intellectual background with his father, Yassine Hadjar, a researcher in quantum mechanics, whom he pays tribute to on his helmet design.

Isack Hadjar is now leading the way at Racing Bulls with one unexpected stat

When Lawson was demoted back to Racing Bulls, it was expected that he would be the higher-rated driver, given that he has more experience with their current car.

The VCARB-02 is an evolution of last year’s machine, in which Lawson scored points at both the US and São Paulo Grands Prix.

Yet Lawson has only outqualified Hadjar once this year at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with the Frenchman noting his “really, really fast” pace in Jeddah.

As for finishing ahead in the races, Hadjar leads the way, having outraced him on all eight occasions so far.