The discussion centers on Isaac Hadjar's impressive rookie Formula One season, highlighting his first podium and consistent performance with Racing Point. The hosts debate whether Red Bull should promote him to their main team amid concerns about readiness and pressure. They also cover recent race disappointments, including Lando Norris's reliability issues and Lewis Hamilton's mistakes, alongside Ferrari's struggles and the unique challenges of the Monza circuit. Predictions for the upcoming Monza Grand Prix and reflections on driver mindsets and team strategies round out the lively conversation.
Topics:isaac hadjar rookie performancered bull driver promotionlando norris reliability issueslewis hamilton mistakesferrari strugglesmonza grand prix challengesformula one driver mindsetrace stewarding controversiesfantasy football parallelsrace predictions
Welcome back to Unlapped! Nicole Briscoe, Nate Saunders, and Laurence Edmondson discuss the latest around the grid. What does Isack Hadjar's thrilling performance in Zandvoort mean for his career? Is the title race over after Lando's DNF? Plus, what are realistic expectations for Ferrari in Monza?
Time Codes:
0:00 Welcome to Unlapped!
3:32 Is Hadjar a star in the making?
9:33 Could Hadjar get promoted to Red Bull?
15:12 Are Lando's title dreams over?
22:53 Was Sainz's penalty unfair?
27:11 Ferrari's disaster weekend
35:00 Monza Preview
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Welcome to Unlapped!
Is Hadjar a star in the making?
Could Hadjar get promoted to Red Bull?
Are Lando's title dreams over?
Was Sainz's penalty unfair?
Ferrari's disaster weekend
Monza Preview
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Another week, another unlapped.
Hi, hello, welcome.
Except for this week, it's extra special because the gang's all here.
Last night, good to see you.
I'm feeling a little stressed today.
I know we're supposed to be talking about Formula One, but I did my fantasy football draft last night.
And I picked eight.
And I took Christian McCaffrey.
Oh, yeah, I mean...
You feel my pain, right?
Because I know you drafted this weekend, too.
Yeah, dreams and nightmares with McCaffrey.
I've had him, I think, I feel like I've had him every year.
He's been tipped to do well, and then he's got injured,
and I've been very sad about it.
So feel your pain.
I got stuck on Barclay in my first pick this year.
Oh, shut up.
Oh, God.
Pick in five.
We have an unusual situation where we have a league with football journalists,
sorry, F1 journalists, who don't know a huge amount about football.
And so in that kind of ranking, I reckon I'm probably lower half of knowledge,
but it means that some people take wild picks.
So Josh Allen went in the pick before mine, a number four from...
Whom?
Yeah.
It was, yeah, it was great.
And it was a guy that always, always picks Josh Allen first round.
And then because...
Where was Daniel Ricardo?
Well, so the funny thing with this league, and apologies,
anyone listening to this who doesn't like fantasy football,
you just have to listen to us for a little bit.
Just deal with it for 30 seconds.
We're good.
The original plan with this league was Zanvo in 2023.
We were going to have Daniel Ricardo and his manager, Blake, join.
And we were like, we're drafting in Zanvo.
We're going to make it a 12-man league.
It'll be really great.
And he was like, yeah, I'm up for it.
I've always wanted to do one.
And so we were talking about buy-ins and stuff,
and we're like, right, we'll draft on the Friday.
Yeah, sorry, the Friday afternoon.
In FP2 of that session, he crashes out and breaks his hand.
And he goes to the medical center.
We are drafting at Red Bull at the time,
because somebody from Red Bull was in the league.
And so we basically, on the fly, had to be like,
right, we found two other people who were like,
yeah, I'll come along.
But it was all...
So this league would have had Daniel Ricardo in it.
I always thought, I don't know how into it he would have been,
but it maybe would have been in the group chat and everything.
So yeah, so it could have, the legacy of it,
as a bunch of people joke about Ricardo.
Yeah, exactly.
So it was almost a league where Josh Allen almost certainly
anywhere would have gone first round,
because I think Daniel Ricardo picked him.
So yeah, so a funny kind of memory of that moment.
Obviously that kind of ruined Ricardo's comeback
that year a little bit.
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We'll get to Formula One stuff now.
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Last week, not gonna lie, I watched the race from bed.
I was stricken with a lovely stomach bug.
I do think it was my kid's gift to me
after their first week at school.
Are they fine?
Yeah, totally fine.
Me, not so much.
So I watched the race from the comfort of my own bed.
And as I was watching all of this unfold,
I just kept watching Hajar.
Isaac Hajar, first career podium, broken trophy,
but first career podium.
He did everything he needed to do in that race.
And I continue to just be in awe of the season he's had.
Has it been perfect?
No.
But I think that's why I'm in all of him.
If you look at where he started in Australia
and just the emotions and not even taking the green flag
to now on the podium, however many races later,
this feels like a genuine star in the making.
We have to be careful with that.
But like this feels like he is a star in the making.
Yeah.
And it's crazy.
Because if you look back at the end of last year
and what Red Bull were going to do with their drivers,
well, if they'd honored Perez's two-year contract,
we probably wouldn't have had Hajar in.
I mean, maybe if Lawson had struggled at racing bulls early on,
they would have promoted him.
But, you know, he wasn't a dead cert to get into that racing bull
seat.
Yet this year of those three drivers that Red Bull have
under contract behind Max Verstappen,
Yuki Snowde, Liam Lawson being the other two,
he's been the star performer.
And I think some of that has come from the consistency
of being at the racing bulls team and racing bulls
having a car which seems to be ideal for rookies really
because regardless of the conditions, regardless of the circuit,
they seem to be able to find a pretty good set up window.
It's a very broad set up window.
So you have it in various different places,
yet the performance is still there.
But the driver still has to extract it.
So this is not taking anything away from Hajar.
And what was super impressive about this first podium
and, you know, it's rookie season with a midfield team,
that alone is incredible stuff.
I mean, the very end of, sorry,
the very other end of someone's career,
we talked about Hülkenberg getting a podium in Silverstein.
Hajar's done his rookie season and it wasn't fluke.
It wasn't one of those races where, you know,
I mean, a lot of stuff happened,
but he was the consistent one.
He had qualified fourth and then took third place
by virtue of Lando Norris having a failure in front of him.
But he was right up then.
He wasn't that far off Verstappen throughout that race.
There was a time actually in the first stint
where Verstappen was on soft tyres and he was on mediums.
And he was closing in and I was thinking,
wow, is Hajar going to pull a move on Max?
Because Max is on the weaker tyre.
So that was massively impressive for me.
And, you know, we, like I said,
we've seen flashes of brilliance throughout this year.
Monaco was another one, which was a very good performance,
but really deserved to put the podium together.
And the thing I like most about Hajar
is that he's been really tough on himself this year.
Everybody else has been saying, hey, you know,
you're having this great season.
Like this is going so well.
You're the top rookie.
And he's often at the end of a qualifying session
or at the end of a race,
picking apart the flaws in his race and his qualifying lap.
But what was lovely about this result
is that he was truly happy and finally admitted
that he had absolutely done his very best
both in qualifying and the race.
And I think that mentality actually will take him a long way.
I mean, any time you look at someone
who's hard on themselves though,
that is how you get better.
Because you were always your own worst critic.
So if you look at someone like Hajar,
who's like, I could have done something better here.
I could have done something better there.
But there's, I don't know, all season,
like literally from the way that he handled
the Australia situation.
Nate, you just like, you look at him and you see,
you see poise, you see maturity,
you see the ability to, like,
almost quite literally just roll with it.
And like, this is what it's gotten him.
Yeah, 100%.
And I mean, the funny thing with Hajar on that
is that one of the things I heard a lot
and wielded in the paddock last year
was that the one thing that there was a concern
with Hajar about was his temperament.
A lot of people wondered,
oh, is he actually that mentally strong at these points?
There's a famous clip of him crashing.
I think it's in Monza in a Formula 2 race
and he says, oh, I destroyed the car
and it's like this famous kind of meme of him
just shouting.
I heard from a lot of people at Red Bull saying,
oh, yeah, he's a bit of a hothead
and stuff like that.
He's 20.
Yeah, exactly.
He's a really good point.
He wouldn't have been 20 then.
Yeah, and sometimes these guys are just, you know,
they don't know how to show those emotions a lot of the time.
What I thought was really telling and impressive
was how Marko spoke to the media on Sunday evening
and he said he's dubbed Hajar for a long time,
mini-prost, which obviously referenced the four-time
champion, Alan Prost, very, very high praise indeed.
He said that Hajar had actually said to him
before qualifying, I'm going to qualify top five.
The pace in this car is, and what Marko said
was so impressive to him was he then went and did it.
So, you know, to exactly your point there, Nicole,
that he gets in and he delivers.
So I'm very impressed with that and he does,
he's also being helped by the fact that obviously
Lawson's not doing the same in the racing balls,
but that racing ball looks quicker on a lot of occasions
and Hajar in it is wonderfully quick.
So yeah, I'm really impressed with him as well
and I thought it's just such a nice,
it's always a nice moment when you get a new podium,
a new face on the podium, especially when it's a young guy
and you are so right to draw the parallel to Australia as well
because when he was walking down that paddock in Australia
and he was hugged by Lewis Hamilton's dad,
you know, I remember that at the time,
I was like, my God, this guy's not going to last very long
if this is how it starts.
This is Red Bull we're talking about.
Especially then because of what helmet Marko
then said afterwards.
So like, he looked at just not his performance,
but what Marko was saying about him
from race one to where we are now.
That's a whoop.
Is that where he said something along the lines
of it was embarrassing?
Wasn't it that he did that?
That's right. Yeah.
Also like Marko, that's a ridiculous take
and like welcome to 2025, please.
But yes.
But Marko does seem to be a big backer of his as well,
which I think is you has is quite telling now
you can see that Marko believed that there's
something special with this guy.
So does that make you feel though a little bit like,
oh, danger, danger.
Because it feel like if he is a big fan of his
and is like happy with his performance,
there is a chance that he could get moved
from baby bull to actually Red Bull.
And you look at that second seat and you look
at what Yuki's been able to do with it
or not do with it.
You look what happened with loss and you look
what happened with Sergio Perez.
It feels like, wait, hold up,
maybe do something stupid, Isaac,
just for the next week or something
derail your progress just for a minute.
Because don't you feel a little bit like
he runs the risk of being promoted to the big
seat too soon.
And that could just be like,
I actually think him being promoted next year
to Red Bull wouldn't be such a bad thing
because you have this big regulation change.
And therefore, rather than going into a situation
where there's a car that has developed with Max
in mind and what Max can do,
not necessarily around Max,
but just Max being able to get the maximum from it.
Going into 2026, you've got more of a blank sheet of paper.
So in a way, it would be a good time to move across.
Of course, there's all that pressure
and everything else that goes with it.
But actually, I think it could work for Hajar
in just his second year to make that move.
And then if you look at where Yuki's
Sonoda is right now,
I think if the final race of the season was Monza
and Red Bull had to make a decision at the end of that,
which way they would go,
I think they would definitely go Hajar.
But I think they're going to give Sonoda
a few more races to figure out.
But I actually don't think it would be
such a terrible thing for Hajar to make that move now
because if we're saying it's inevitable
he's going to do it a little bit down the line anyway,
why not get in on the ground floor
with this new regulation set
and help develop that car
and be a part of the development of that car
rather than being dropped into it in one year, two years time
once you're already changing from a racing bull
to a Red Bull under the 26 wrecks.
But what I would like to see if they do do that is,
and this may not happen because it's Red Bull,
but the Mercedes-Antonelli approach
to having a rookie or a very young driver
in your car that's at the front of the grid
and that's to say the first year
is absolutely a learning experience.
There's going to be mistakes.
We're going to support him throughout.
We're always going to say nice things
at the end of each race.
We're not going to put him under pressure about it
while he's in that first year.
So I mean, if that did happen,
if Hadjard did get that promotion,
I'd love to see it with two guaranteed years
at Red Bull.
And then I think it could work.
But of course, you know,
I do understand your concern that pushing the driver up
to Red Bull in just their second year.
We've seen it so many times with Red Bull
before and it hasn't worked.
And you do wonder whether the new face of Red Bull now,
you know, there's no corner there now.
He and Marco always clashed a lot over the driver decisions.
It seemed a lot of the two-ing and throwing
as much as it was down to performance.
There was almost like a performative element there
between the two of them.
You know, when Nick DeVries was promoted to the junior team,
for example, a few years ago,
it was this is Helmut Marco's guy.
When he didn't succeed,
Horner was very gleefully able to say,
well, he's failed, we're putting Danny Rick in
and he's my guy.
And Danny Rick didn't do so well.
Marco wasn't too...
So there's a lot of that as well going on.
I think now that that element is out of the way,
and also the fact that Laura Meckies has worked with Hajar.
I mean, he's worked with all three of those guys,
other than Max, you know, now, as Racing Bull's team boss.
I could actually, I completely agree with what Lawrence said.
And if you look back to all the examples before,
Gasly, Albon, not so much Perez,
but even Perez, it was kind of,
there was a slightly different situation,
but then you look at Lawson,
there was never that guarantee that Lawrence mentioned.
It was never, you're going to be here for two years.
It was, hey kid, don't mess this up.
This is your big chance.
And so I think, I think, yeah, if they're going to do it,
they have to do it the right way.
I think they will.
You do?
I think they will just,
I think they will because they've got Limblad to come up,
the junior from F2.
But that's still, but that's not a,
but I think that's part of my problem.
That's not giving him the guarantee
because you're still bringing him up.
You're still bringing him in and being like,
well, if you don't work,
we got this other guy breathing down your neck.
That is not an environment that like,
last was just talking about like,
Mercedes is doing with Kimmy and giving him the support
and letting him make the mistakes and stuff like that.
Like that's, that's not, that's not it.
Yeah.
And the way it would work is if they did announce
it's two years for all of those guys, you know,
do you actually see them doing that?
I don't know.
It depends.
I mean, when Marco very rarely speaks as glowingly
about the young drivers as he did on Sunday
about, about, about Hajar.
So I think there is a real feeling
that they have someone quite special with Hajar
and Limblad, I think they do also feel that.
But if they, there's also,
there's also a telling thing in Red Bull is they know
better than anyone that they've messed up the driver pipeline
that they had for a long time now.
And I think that for Marco as well,
especially as he approaches the end of his career,
I think there's a big desire on his side to be like,
let's get, let's make the Red Bull driver program
mean what it used to mean again.
And part of doing that is probably taking the foot
off the gas a little bit and saying,
right, we're going to give this guy time at the top team.
And we got that Limblad, you know,
let's not forget here.
They may well be losing Max again in a year's time from now.
So I think they're also wary of that fact.
And it's like, let's not burn through all of these young guys
because if Max does have another exit clause
and he can trigger that 12 months down the line from now,
you don't want to have already burned through Hajar
because you're like, well,
now we need to find someone to go with Hajar as well.
So I think there is a change of mindset in the background,
but I think your skepticism is totally fair as well,
Nicole, because this is a team that historically
has not done it the right way.
I just hope they do because if they would blow this talent,
I think it would be, yeah,
just be a real shame because he clearly has something
that a few others before him have not had.
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