The 2025 Formula 1 season will be a kind of debutante’s ball. The Visa Cash App Racing Bulls has also chosen a driver with no experience in F1: the French Algerian Isack Hadjar will be Yuki Tsunoda’s partner. Another Red Bull Junior Team driver arrives in F1.
After Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber/Audi), here is Hadjar who, after Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, becomes the 18th driver to move to Formula 1 from the Red Bull Junior Programme, which began in 2006.
In addition to the three debs, next year there will be many other baby drivers at the start such as Jack Doohan (Alpine), Liam Lawson (Red Bull) and Olivier Bearman (Haas).
Kimi is 18, Bearman 19, Hadjar and Bortoleto 20, Doohan 21 and Lawson 22. A nice injection of youth into a championship where Sainz is over 30, Hulkenberg is over 35, Alonso is over 40 and soon Hamilton.
Twenty-year-old Hadjar who holds dual French and Algerian nationality, started out in karting and excelled in French F4 competition before finishing fourth overall in the 2022 FIA Formula 3 Championship.
After an encouraging first season in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, he moved to the prestigious Campos Racing team, where he quickly established himself as one of the most promising prospects with four race wins and eight podiums this season, earning him second absolute place.
Hadjar’s rapid rise has included big wins at classic venues such as Imola, Spa-Francorchamps and Silverstone with his stints as a test and reserve driver for Oracle Red Bull Racing and Visa Cash App Racing Bulls now converted to a full-fledged seat as a driver together with the Japanese driver Tsunoda, who will take to the track for his fifth season with the team.
Hadjar said: “I’m very excited to start my new role at VCARB, it’s a great thing for me, my family and all the people who have believed in me from the beginning. The journey from karting through the single seater ranks to now being in Formula One is the moment I have worked for all my life, it is the dream. I feel like I’m entering a whole new universe, driving a much faster car and racing with the best drivers in the world. It will be a huge learning curve, but I am ready to work hard and do my best for the team. I’m looking forward to working with and learning from Yuki, I’ve always admired him, he followed the Red Bull Junior Programme, like me, and we shared a similar path to F1. He is very experienced and it will be nice to learn from him.”
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