In the context of possible future reshuffles within the Red Bull teams, the name of 19-year-old French driver Isaac Hajjar, the leader in the Formula 2 individual championship, has been mentioned with increasing frequency recently.
He already has four wins to his name – at Melbourne’s Albert Park, Imola, Silverstone and Spa, and in all cases he won the feature races of the weekend, which take place on Sunday. We’ve already quoted Helmut Marko’s words that Isaac “certainly has the potential to move to Formula 1.”
Max Verstappen shares the same opinion – he has seen Hajjar not only in F2 races, but also behind the wheel of the RB20, as Red Bull Racing has entrusted him with Friday practice on more than one occasion – the last time being on the podium at Silverstone.
“Of course I saw him in our team, he drove our cars more than once,” RacingNews365 quotes Verstappen. “He is doing a great job, even if he didn’t have much luck at the beginning of the F2 season. But I want to say that in my opinion he has all the necessary qualities. And of course the future prospects depend on the decisions of our management.”
Red Bull’s management really has some important decisions to make: it is still unclear who will partner Yuki Tsunoda at Visa RB next year, and there is also no confidence that the championship-winning team will continue working with Sergio Perez, whose results are clearly declining.
In Spa, Perez showed the 2nd fastest time in qualifying, but only managed 7th place in the race, after which Marco called his performance “an absolute disaster”. Red Bull’s motorsport advisor also made it clear that a statement will be made in September about Liam Lawson, who has been waiting for his turn in Formula 1 for several years.
One possible scenario is that Lawson will drive for Visa RB from next season, with Hajjar being given reserve driver duties for both Red Bull teams, taking the place of the New Zealander.
Marco’s opinion on this is already known: “We will see how events develop, but he will be entrusted with some role, that’s for sure. It is possible that he will work as a test driver for a year and work in the simulator, as was the case with Lawson.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
