Isack Hadjar is the man of the moment in Formula 2. With three feature race wins so far and a 16-point championship lead, the Campos driver is in the driving seat as the season heads to its ninth round in Hungary. Before his third win at Silverstone, Hadjar spoke exclusively to Feeder Series.

By Martin Lloyd

After a series of unfortunate events that plagued the opening phase of Hadjar’s season, he finally rose to the top of the standings after his victory at the British Grand Prix. He took his elusive first pole of the season at Silverstone before his eventual victory, but did not want to rest on his laurels.

“I think it’s not normal that we only score our first pole now,” Hadjar told Feeder Series. “Last week was a huge opportunity. We missed out on an easy pole [at the Red Bull Ring]. To finally reward all this hard work feels good.”

The qualifying success at Silverstone was Hadjar’s first F2 feature race pole, at the 21^st attempt. He could have broken the duck a week earlier, had his engine not dramatically failed when he was on provisional pole in Spielberg. 

Hadjar was a driver who arrived in F2 in 2023 with much expectation after a stellar rise through the junior single-seater ranks. In 2020, his second year of car racing, he finished third in French F4. In 2021, Hadjar claimed fifth in his first season of Formula Regional Europe, earning him a place in the Red Bull Junior Team with which he remains to this day.

Now, he is a favourite for F2 title honours, despite having faced misfortune on multiple occasions. As well as the engine troubles in Austria, he also retired from both races in Saudi Arabia with mechanical issues. Moreover, he was the innocent party in two first-lap collisions, first in the Bahrain feature race and later in the Melbourne sprint.  

“We are really working hard, and we show it every weekend, but we have been super unlucky,” Hadjar said. “Luck wasn’t our best friend, to be honest I felt I only underperformed in Barcelona qualifying, that was the only mistake I’ve done in the whole season, so I’m really confident in my chances to win it [the title].”

After his French F4 triumph, Hadjar finished fourth in the 2022 Formula 3 season with three wins for the Hitech team. 2023 proved to be a difficult year for Hadjar, as he progressed to F2 with Hitech and finished 14^th in the standings with just one podium. However, a switch to Campos looks to have paid dividends, with the 19-year-old consistently impressive during the first half of the season – only qualifying outside of the top 10 once, in Barcelona.

As the series takes a brief break before a double-header at the Hungaroring and Spa-Francorchamps, Hadjar has moved to take the lead of the championship for the first time. And while he is focused on his F2 ambitions, another goal is appearing on Hadjar’s horizon: a seat in Formula One. To aid his preparation for a future full-time drive, Hadjar has taken part in three free practice outings with the Red Bull-backed F1 teams, as well as the young drivers’ test at Abu Dhabi in December 2023. Hadjar’s most recent session was at Silverstone, in his first F1 drive since Abu Dhabi.

“It felt quite new [to drive the F1 car],” Hadjar said. “Obviously you don’t get a lot of mileage in FP1, it’s quite a limited run-plan, to have been in an F1 car only twice – it was last year, last time I drove in F1, 7 months ago. I can count the amount of push-laps I’ve done, so it felt like I was new to it, it was a shock.”

After the F1 session, Hadjar had to quickly return to his F2 machinery. This is a difficult transition, with a small time gap between the sessions in which to adjust. Hadjar explained the challenges of a quick return to his Campos car.

“Its really hard,” he said. “When you come back to the F2, everything comes at you quite slowly. The steering weight is super-heavy, all your references are wrong. I really took the first run as an adaptation run, trying to understand what was going on, and delivered on the second. I knew I had a lot of margin on that first run and I knew in the pits I would come out and do the job.”

Despite the added complication of the F1 run, Hadjar was still able to produce a stellar performance in F2 qualifying. He finished two-and-a-half tenths clear of compatriot Victor Martins, before going on to beat Zane Maloney and Jak Crawford to the feature race win. Hadjar is undoubtedly building a strong resumé, with a potential seat still open at the RB F1 team for 2025. He told Feeder Series that he feels he is making a strong case for the drive.

“I guess I’m in the conversation for that seat [at RB],” Hadjar said. “In the end, there’s not much I can do apart from doing what I did today [taking pole]. We really mean it when we say we do the talking on the track, it’s the only thing you can do.”

“I can’t rock up to Helmut or [Christian] Horner and say ‘I want that seat’, there’s no way you do that. You need to deliver on track and show them what you can do.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency