Motor Sports: Isack Hadjar, a season between confirmation and ambition

Hadjar on the way to the Australian Grand Prix
We had left him on a disappointing 17th place at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last December for his final junior race with the Racing Bulls. Now in the main Red Bull team, the 21-year-old Algerian driver who has nevertheless impressed during the past season with a third place in the Netherlands, will have much to do with the head of the Austrian team, Max Verstappen, four-time world champion. But things got off to a pretty good start for Hadjar this Saturday in the Australian Grand Prix qualifying.

Isack Hadjar finished third and secured a position in the front row of the grid on Sunday (6am GMT) for the first Grand Prix of the season. However, Isack Hadjar remains humble, acknowledging that Verstappen’s spectacular crash in Q1 has benefited him. "If Max (Verstappen) had participated in the qualification, I wouldn’t be there," he told L'Equipe. I am here to compare myself with the best. And I couldn’t do it. We’ll see in China.”

Ambition and title dream
Very ambitious, Isack Hadjar is not content with his podium, evoking a lead of the Mercedes Team with George Russel (1st) and Kimi Antonelli (2nd) who finished in front of him: "The Mercedes are too far away and I didn’t manage to compare myself with the best and see what I can do. I didn’t learn as much as I wanted today from this qualifying session because he wasn’t there," he added, deploring once again the absence of Team Red Bull’s leader.

Despite this great admiration he has for the Dutch, Hadjar does not hide his ambitions, especially for the title. Two weeks ago, he repeated them in an interview with AFP.  "It’s that or I go home," reiterated Isack Hadjar, as reported by Le Figaro. 

“I don’t see myself being world champion with another team, for now. (Red Bull) is doing a good job, so there’s no reason. If the car allows to win, then I will win races, but if it does not allow me, I will still try. The goal is to be regular as much as possible, to be in the points every weekend. When you’re a Red Bull player, you have to. I am in a car that is at least in the top 4, it’s not an achievement in itself,” 

he added.

For Isack Hadjar, the Australian Grand Prix marks not only the opening of the season this Sunday, but also the beginning of a promising new adventure where his performances must rime with his ambitions. The Franco-Algerian must leave his mark on the Albert Park circuit before thinking about China (March 15) and then Japan at the end of the month (March 29).