Max Verstappen was asked by Canal+ whether Isack Hadjar is the driver to replace him when he eventually walks away from Formula 1.
“That’s what I hope. As I said, I’m not racing here forever. He has a few years on me, so hopefully he can stay around for a bit longer,” he said in an interview published on Tuesday.
The endorsement rests on a first senior season at Red Bull in which Hadjar, 22, has become the most competitive teammate Verstappen has had in years. He was promoted from Racing Bulls at the end of 2025 to replace Yuki Tsunoda.
Hadjar has stood on the podium twice: Third at Monaco in May, aided by penalties for Pierre Gasly, and third at Baku on 26 September.
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The Azerbaijan result was the one Hadjar described as his “first proper podium” on pure pace, having qualified fourth behind only Verstappen, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.
Between those podiums Hadjar qualified inside the top ten at every grand prix bar Singapore, where reliability intervened. In Japan in March he beat Verstappen in qualifying outright, with the Dutchman eliminated in Q2 and lining up 11th on the Suzuka grid.
Verstappen looks beyond his own career
Verstappen framed the thought as a point about how Red Bull renews itself rather than a verdict on the current pecking order.
“I’m not going to race forever, and at one point you need new talent coming into the team to try and take over at one point. That’s always been a little bit the way that Red Bull works.”
He also described the 22-year-old as “still a very young guy” who has “been a part of the Red Bull program for a while now.”
Hadjar locked in through 2027
Red Bull confirmed Hadjar’s extension ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with team principal Laurent Mekies saying the Frenchman had been “superb on and off track” since his promotion.
Verstappen’s own current deal, announced on 20 August ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, runs through the end of the 2030 championship.
Hadjar will be 26 when Verstappen’s contract expires.
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