Has Hadjar ended the Red Bull second seat curse?

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Several F1 drivers have held the second seat at Red Bull across the past decade, with most finding the task of going up against Max Verstappen to be a challenging one. Isack Hadjar was the latest to step up at the start of the 2026 season, the French driver having impressed during his rookie campaign at Racing Bulls last year – and his performances so far in his sophomore outing have also caught the eye of many. But how does Hadjar stack up against Verstappen in comparison to those who came before him at Red Bull? Well, our data team have been digging into the numbers to find out – and discovered some interesting findings… Firstly, we looked at how Hadjar’s average Qualifying delta to Verstappen so far compares to the Dutchman’s previous team mates at Red Bull, taking 2017 as the starting point (with this being Verstappen’s first complete season at the team). For context, the laps were normalised to 90s so that larger or shorter laps didn't skew the results too much. The data shows that Hadjar is the driver to get the closest to Verstappen since Daniel Ricciardo, with the 21-year-old’s current average deficit to his team mate standing at just over 0.1s. This is the best performance after Ricciardo, whose delta was the lowest of all at around half a tenth in 2017. The gap increased for Ricciardo in 2018 to just under 0.2s, meaning that Hadjar has bettered this as well as being dramatically closer to Verstappen than those who held the seat in the years between. Yuki Tsunoda experienced the biggest deficit of all to Verstappen in 2025, the gap averaging at just over 0.6s, while Alex Albon in 2020 and Sergio Perez in 2023 also found themselves more than half a second off the four-time World Champion. Pierre Gasly experienced a similar fate, the now-Alpine racer and Albon sharing an average delta of around 0.5s in 2019 – a season that saw Gasly compete in 12 races for Red Bull before being demoted back to the then-named Toro Rosso outfit in a direct swap with Albon. Our data team also examined the points gap between Hadjar and Verstappen in comparison to recent years at Red Bull. This shows that Hadjar – at this stage of the season – is again one of those closest to Verstappen, with the deficit currently at 41 points after 11 rounds. While there is still a way to go in 2026, the numbers paint quite a different picture compared to previous years. The gap was at its biggest last season, with Verstappen ending the campaign a whopping 388 points ahead of Tsunoda. The deficit was also vast in 2023, Verstappen being 290 points clear of Perez – though it should be noted that Perez was still the Dutch driver’s closest competitor in P2 of the championship, highlighting Red Bull’s dominance during that season. Ricciardo is the only driver to score more points than Verstappen during a season together at Red Bull, a feat that occurred back in 2017 when the Australian’s tally of 200 points put him 32 ahead of Verstappen’s 168. While Verstappen scored more than Ricciardo in 2018, the gap stood at 79 points – making it the lowest deficit over the course of a full season so far. With the second half of the 2026 season still to play out, it remains to be seen if Hadjar can end the championship with an even lower points gap to his team mate than that achieved by Ricciardo – but the statistics from the campaign so far are certainly promising for the Frenchman. 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