Motor racing-French driver Hadjar to remain at Red Bull in 2027

Frenchman Isack Hadjar said doing his talking on the track had ‌made negotiations with Red Bull over extending his Formula One contract into 2027 easy. The 21-year-old will continue to drive alongside four-times world champion Max Verstappen next season, the Milton Keynes-based team said on Wednesday.

I didn’t even talk about it," Hadjar told reporters at the Baku ‌street circuit ahead of Saturday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. “You know, I let my people do the talking for me. I do ‌it on the track and that’s about it. It was very easy,” he added.

Hadjar stepped up to multiple champions Red Bull this year after an impressive debut season with sister team Racing Bulls in 2025. He has scored points in eight of the 11 races he has taken part in, including a third-place ⁠finish in ​Monaco, and is eighth in ⁠the overall standings on 71 points despite having missed the last three races with a wrist injury.

"We're very excited to continue our journey with Isack," team ⁠principal Laurent Mekies said in a statement. “Since joining us at the start of the year, he has been superb on and off track, especially ​considering this is only his second Formula One season, which made extending his contract an easy decision."

Hadjar's contract extension cones ⁠after Red Bull agreed a new deal with Verstappen last month, keeping the Dutchman at the Milton Keynes-based outfit until the end of 2030. It also ended ⁠the ​possibility of a promotion for Racing Bulls drivers Arvid Lindblad, the only rookie on this year’s grid, and New Zealander Liam Lawson, who filled in for Hadjar during his time on the sidelines.

The role of teammate to Verstappen has been something of ⁠a poisoned chalice for a string of hopefuls. Hadjar, set to make his racing return in Azerbaijan, at the start of this ⁠year became the Dutchman’s seventh ⁠different teammate since he joined Red Bull in 2016.

Verstappen backed Red Bull’s move to keep the Frenchman. "It only made sense for the team to do what they did with announcing him and ‌I think he definitely ‌deserved that," he said.