Christian Horner identifies Red Bull junior ‘making strong case’ for F1 2025 VCARB seat

Christian Horner highlighted Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar as a potential VCARB candidate for an F1 2025 seat, saying he is “making a strong case for himself” as it stands.

Hadjar currently leads the Formula 2 standings after an impressive Silverstone weekend, having placed his Campos car on pole just 90 minutes after taking part in FP1 for Red Bull, going on to take feature race victory.

Christian Horner highlights Isack Hadjar as ‘making strong case’ for F1 2025 seat

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

Horner is weighing up multiple options for who will partner Yuki Tsunoda at VCARB next season, with Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson believed to be the main contenders for the seat as it stands.

But with French driver Hadjar on an upward trajectory, the 19-year-old has shown a run of form that has caught Horner’s eye – while also namechecking young British driver Arvid Lindblad for his current rate of progress through the junior categories.

Because of this, the Red Bull team principal acknowledged the team are not going to rush to a decision over the second seat at VCARB for now.

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“He’s doing a good job,” Horner said of Hadjar to media including PlanetF1.com at Silverstone.

“He had a good weekend. You know, good to see both Isack and Arvid Lindblad win the Formula 3 race [at Silverstone]. Two outstanding talents that are coming through.

“So, again, he’s making a strong case for himself next year, which is why we’re not in any rush to finalise seats in the sister team.”

For Hadjar himself, he admitted going from a free practice session in a Formula 1 car back to a Formula 2 car in such a short space of time is quite an adjustment for him to have made, but that did not stop him from placing his car on feature race pole before converting it to victory last weekend.

“It is really hard to go from F1 to F2 within one and a half hours,” Hadjar said after putting his Formula 2 car on pole for the feature race.

“It’s changing your references and feeling with the car completely. It’s completely different, you go from power steering to none.

“It messes up the references a little bit, so I used the first run to adapt and the second to deliver.”

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