Road to Formula 1

He was born on 28 September 2004 in Paris and is of French-Algerian heritage. After karting he moved up to French Formula 4 in 2019, and in his second season, 2020, he finished third with three wins. In 2021 he was sixth in Asian Formula 3 and fifth in the Formula Regional European Championship, where he won two races. He has been in the Red Bull junior programme since 2022: he began that year with third place in the Formula Regional Asian Championship and then moved on to the Formula 3 championship.

Formula 3 and Formula 2

In the 2022 Formula 3 season he drove for Hitech: he won the very first race of the season in Sakhir in March, added wins at Silverstone and Spielberg, and led the championship going into the summer break. He arrived at the Monza finale in September in second place, five points behind, but a mistake in qualifying left him 16th on the grid for the feature race; finishing ninth dropped him to fourth in the final standings.

In 2023 he moved up to Formula 2 with the same team and went the season without a win. That year he also drove a Formula 1 car for the first time, taking part in first practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix for AlphaTauri and then in first practice at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for Red Bull. On 5 July 2024 he was back in first practice for Red Bull at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, in Sergio Pérez’s car.

In 2024 he switched to Campos and won four Formula 2 races. He went into the final round in Abu Dhabi second, less than five points behind Gabriel Bortoleto. In the feature race on 8 December 2024 he lined up third but stalled at the start; Bortoleto finished second and took the title. Hadjar finished second in the final standings.

Racing Bulls: debut and first podium

He was given a Racing Bulls seat for 2025 on 20 December 2024 — the last driver on the grid to be confirmed — alongside Yuki Tsunoda. His debut at the Australian Grand Prix on 16 March 2025 ended before the start: on the formation lap in the rain, while warming up his rear tyres at Turn 2, he spun and hit the wall, and the start of the race was delayed. After two rounds Red Bull swapped its drivers: on 27 March 2025 Tsunoda was promoted to the senior team, and from the Japanese Grand Prix Hadjar’s team-mate was Liam Lawson.

He scored his first points at the Japanese Grand Prix on 6 April 2025 — eighth from seventh on the grid. On 25 May 2025 in Monaco he started fifth and finished sixth. His first podium was third place at the Dutch Grand Prix on 31 August 2025, from fourth on the grid. He finished the 2025 season 12th in the Drivers’ Championship.

On 2 December 2025 Red Bull announced its 2026 line-ups: Hadjar became Max Verstappen’s team-mate in the senior team, Tsunoda moved into a test and reserve role, and Hadjar’s Racing Bulls seat alongside Lawson went to the rookie Arvid Lindblad.

2026 season

2026 is the first season of the new technical regulations, with power units that draw around half their output from the electrical side and active aerodynamics. At the Australian Grand Prix on 8 March 2026 Hadjar qualified third but retired on lap 11 with a technical failure while running fifth. His first points for Red Bull came at the Chinese Grand Prix on 15 March 2026 with eighth place. On 24 May 2026 he finished fifth in Canada.

On 7 June 2026 in Monaco he started fifth and finished third — his first podium for Red Bull, a result that stood after a post-race stewards’ investigation. On 19 July 2026 at Spa he served a penalty for exceeding his allocation of power unit components: he started 21st and finished sixth. Sixth place at the Hungarian Grand Prix on 26 July 2026 was his seventh points finish in a row.

He injured his wrist while training during the summer break. On 19 August 2026 Red Bull announced that Liam Lawson would replace him at the Dutch Grand Prix, with Tsunoda taking Lawson’s place at Racing Bulls. Lawson also stood in for him at the following rounds, at Monza on 6 September and in Madrid on 13 September 2026. On 17 September 2026 team principal Laurent Mekies said that his return would be decided by how the driver felt, not by the calendar.