How Isack Hadjar compares to Max Verstappen’s recent Red Bull team mates

Several drivers have occupied the second Red Bull seat during Max Verstappen’s time at the team. For most, the comparison has been unforgiving. Verstappen’s benchmark has remained one of the defining challenges of the Red Bull operation, and the latest numbers offer an early indication that Isack Hadjar may be handling it better than many of those who came before him.

The picture is not yet complete: the 2026 season is only 11 rounds old, with the second half still to come. Even so, Hadjar’s qualifying and championship deficits currently place him among the drivers who have stayed closest to Verstappen at Red Bull.

Hadjar’s qualifying gap to Verstappen

The first comparison focuses on average qualifying delta. The analysis examines Hadjar’s performance against Verstappen so far in 2026 and compares it with the Dutchman’s Red Bull team mates from 2017 onwards. That starting point is significant within the dataset because 2017 was Verstappen’s first complete season with the team.

To keep the comparison consistent, the laps were normalised to 90 seconds. This was done so that longer or shorter lap times did not distort the size of the gaps. The result is a clearer view of the relative qualifying performance across the different seasons.

Ricciardo remains the closest benchmark

The numbers identify Hadjar as the driver to have come closest to Verstappen since Daniel Ricciardo. Hadjar’s current average deficit is just over 0.1 seconds, putting him clearly ahead of the drivers who occupied the seat between Ricciardo’s Red Bull campaigns and the start of the 2026 season.

Ricciardo set the strongest qualifying benchmark in the comparison during 2017, when his average delta to Verstappen was around half a tenth. That remains the lowest gap recorded in the dataset. Hadjar has not matched that figure, but his current performance still places him in a different category from most of Verstappen’s more recent team mates.

The comparison becomes even more encouraging for Hadjar when Ricciardo’s second season is considered. In 2018, Ricciardo’s average deficit increased to just under 0.2 seconds. Hadjar’s current gap is smaller than that figure, meaning the Frenchman has so far been closer to Verstappen over one-lap performance than Ricciardo was in the latter of their two seasons together.

That does not make the comparison final. Hadjar still has the rest of 2026 to complete, and his average can change as the season develops. However, the early data establishes a strong starting point: among Verstappen’s team mates since 2017, only Ricciardo’s 2017 campaign has produced a smaller average qualifying gap.

The significance of that result is reinforced by the size of the deficits recorded by several other drivers. Yuki Tsunoda had the largest average gap in the comparison in 2025, at just over 0.6 seconds. Alex Albon in 2020 and Sergio Perez in 2023 also ended up more than half a second behind Verstappen on average.

Pierre Gasly experienced a similar level of difficulty in 2019. His average delta was around 0.5 seconds, matching Albon’s figure. Gasly contested 12 races for Red Bull that season before returning to the then-named Toro Rosso team in a direct swap with Albon.

The spread between Hadjar’s current figure and those larger deficits is substantial. A gap of just over one tenth suggests a much tighter qualifying contest than the half-second-or-more margins seen in several of the other seasons. It is also why Hadjar’s early campaign has generated such a positive statistical comparison, even before the full season has been completed.

For further context on the wider attention surrounding Verstappen and Red Bull, Laurent Mekies has described the driver and team as an “inseparable entity”. That backdrop makes the performance of any team mate particularly revealing: the closer the second driver gets to Verstappen, the more notable the result becomes within Red Bull’s recent data.

The championship points comparison

Qualifying pace tells only part of the story. The second measure considered is the points gap between Verstappen and his team mate. Here, too, Hadjar currently ranks among the closest challengers to the Dutchman.

After 11 rounds of the 2026 season, Hadjar trails Verstappen by 41 points. That is already a meaningful deficit, but compared with several recent Red Bull pairings, it is a relatively narrow one. The comparison must still be treated as provisional because the season is not finished. The remaining races could either reduce or widen the gap.

Nevertheless, the figures so far contrast sharply with the margins recorded in recent years. The largest deficit in the comparison came in 2025, when Verstappen finished the campaign 388 points ahead of Tsunoda. The gap was also extremely large in 2023, with Verstappen ending the season 290 points clear of Perez.

Perez’s 2023 season deserves an important qualification within the numbers. Although Verstappen finished far ahead of him, Perez was still the Dutchman’s closest competitor in second place in the championship. That detail underlines the strength of Red Bull’s performance during the season, while also showing how difficult it was to match Verstappen’s points accumulation even from within the same dominant team.

Ricciardo’s unique points advantage

Ricciardo is the only driver in the comparison to score more points than Verstappen during a season as Red Bull team mates. That happened in 2017, when Ricciardo finished the campaign with 200 points, compared with Verstappen’s 168. The Australian therefore ended the season 32 points ahead.

The points picture changed in 2018, when Verstappen outscored Ricciardo. Even then, however, the deficit remained the smallest recorded over a completed season so far: Ricciardo finished 79 points behind his team mate.

That 79-point margin provides the full-season benchmark for Hadjar. His current deficit is only 41 points after 11 rounds, leaving open the possibility that he could finish 2026 with a smaller gap than Ricciardo recorded in 2018. Whether that happens will depend on the remainder of the campaign, but the current trajectory gives Hadjar a realistic statistical target.

What the numbers say about Hadjar’s season

Taken together, the qualifying and points data present a consistent picture. Hadjar is not merely benefiting from one isolated measure. His average qualifying gap to Verstappen is just over one tenth of a second, while his championship deficit after 11 rounds stands at 41 points.

Those figures place him closer to Verstappen than Gasly, Albon, Perez and Tsunoda in the relevant comparisons. They also put him within reach of the two Ricciardo benchmarks: he is currently behind Ricciardo’s 2017 qualifying performance, but ahead of the Australian’s 2018 qualifying delta, while his points gap is still below Ricciardo’s 79-point deficit from that completed season.

The distinction between the two measures is important. A close qualifying gap indicates that Hadjar has been able to operate near Verstappen’s pace over a single lap. The points comparison then shows how that relative pace has translated into the championship after 11 rounds. The two results reinforce the same conclusion: Hadjar’s start to life at Red Bull has been statistically stronger than that of most recent team mates.

That conclusion should not be overstated. Hadjar’s campaign remains unfinished, and the available numbers cover only the opening 11 rounds. The comparison with previous drivers also spans different seasons, meaning the figures are being used to identify the size of the gaps rather than to suggest that every campaign unfolded under identical circumstances.

Still, the early evidence is clear enough to make Hadjar’s performance stand out. Red Bull’s second seat has proved difficult to benchmark against Verstappen, with several drivers ending their seasons more than half a second away in qualifying and hundreds of points behind in the championship. Hadjar’s current figures are materially better on both counts.

The second half of 2026 will decide the comparison

The most important qualification is also the most obvious: there is still a long way to go in 2026. Hadjar’s 41-point deficit could change significantly before the championship ends, and his average qualifying delta may move as more sessions are added to the dataset.

That is why the final verdict must wait. The present numbers are promising rather than definitive. They show Hadjar has started his Red Bull career closer to Verstappen than the majority of the drivers examined, but they do not yet establish where he will finish in the completed-season rankings.

For now, though, the Frenchman has achieved a position that few of Verstappen’s team mates have managed. His qualifying gap is just over 0.1 seconds, his points deficit is 41 after 11 rounds, and both figures compare favourably with the recent Red Bull record. If he can maintain that level through the second half of the season, Hadjar will have a genuine chance of setting a new benchmark for the smallest points gap to Verstappen over a full campaign.

The statistics therefore offer a measured but significant verdict: Hadjar has not yet matched Ricciardo’s best Red Bull season, but he has emerged as Verstappen’s closest team mate since the Australian’s 2017 campaign. The remaining races will determine whether that promising opening becomes one of the strongest second-seat performances of the Verstappen era.