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Isack Hadjar has confessed that if his debut season with Red Bull doesn't work out, he could find himself on the F1 driver market scrap heap for the 2027 season. The French-Algerian prodigy will team up with Max Verstappen this year after just one year in the top flight of open-wheel racing.

Hadjar's promotion into F1 last year was something of a bonus, born out of the chain of events set off by Sergio Perez's exit from Red Bull in December 2024. However, the 21-year-old grasped his opportunity with both hands, outshining the likes of Kimi Antonelli and Gabriel Bortoleto to become, in the eyes of many pundits, the most impressive rookie.

With Yuki Tsunoda cast aside after a miserable 2025 campaign, and Liam Lawson's chances of a Red Bull return dashed after an ill-fated two-race stint at the start of the year, Hadjar was the obvious choice to partner Verstappen for the first year of the new technical regulations.

Now the Paris-born racer faces a daunting task in F1's biggest hot seat. "This is my first chance... It's also my last," Hadjar told AutoRacer IT. "If this 2026 doesn't work out, my options in Formula One could be closed."

Hadjar has already demonstrated the resilience to bounce back if his Red Bull career gets off to a rocky start. He crashed on the formation lap on his F1 debut in Melbourne and was devastated in the immediate aftermath, but bounced back with points just two races later.

"That day the world collapsed around me," Hadjar said, looking back at his F1 debut. "I was struggling to manage my emotions in the car. I couldn't give myself six months to recover; here, every five days you're back on track. They were still tough days, thinking about the mistake and the consequences, but at the same time, I knew I could get back in the car and show what I can do."

Hadjar's nervous anticipation is understandable. Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Perez, Lawson and Tsunoda have all suffered greatly in the seat alongside Verstappen. However, according to his former boss at Racing Bulls, Alan Permane, he has the attributes required to succeed.

"Yeah, it's been phenomenal," Permane told Motorsport Week. "We've seen him after, of course, the disaster of Melbourne and the huge upset that caused him, he bounced back almost immediately for that. He had an incredibly strong race in Japan, just two races afterwards, I think.

"And honestly, it was a little bit under the radar, but for me, that was where his season really, really started and he performed incredibly and he really got to grips with the car and understood how to make the car work in a track like Suzuka, which is, of course, not an easy track and he felt how physical it was as well. And then he's gone from strength to strength."