Red Bull will expect wins and help in the constructors’ championship from Hadjar, says Waché

Isack Hadjar’s performances this season have been a rollercoaster. Excellent weekends have alternated with anonymous ones. He was outstanding in Sao Paulo, but the points gap between Red Bull’s drivers remains the biggest among the top teams. According to the team’s technical director Pierre Waché, that needs to change.

After last year’s struggles with their second driver, Red Bull are pleased that Hadjar has managed to reach this level in his first year. Isack has undoubtedly produced plenty of excellent performances, but Max Verstappen has still scored more than 67 per cent of the team’s points this season.

If Red Bull are to mount a realistic challenge for the Constructors’ Championship, they need either a truly dominant car or a bigger contribution from their second driver. Max Verstappen will undoubtedly be many people’s favourite heading into the new season, but what about Red Bull? What will their chances of the Constructors’ Championship be?

That will depend on Isack Hadjar’s performances. “First, he has to contribute for himself, to say what he needs to go quick,” Pierre Waché told RacingNews365.com. “He has improved a lot since the start of the season. He clearly has pace in him, like we have seen.”

“When you have a new engineer or a new driver, you have to get to know each other. You have to understand the vocabulary used for the needs he has. But he’s developing well. He has massive potential in him, and a desire to win. That is what we are looking for,” the French engineer continued.

“We need a second driver to be very good in the constructors’ championship. That is our aim. He is in the right place, and he is the future of the team, otherwise we would not have taken him,” Waché added.

Hadjar deserves credit when his performances are compared with those of his predecessors at Red Bull. Comparing him with the other driver pairings, however, is more complicated. Lando Norris, for example, has scored 61.8 per cent of his team’s points this season. Oscar Piastri’s performances have drawn justified criticism, but he still accounts for a greater share of his team’s points than Hadjar. Admittedly, Isack missed a few races through injury, but even those would not have changed the overall picture much.

During the interview, Waché refused to dwell on the past or compare Hadjar with his predecessors. “I don’t want to look at that. Maybe it was difficult, and maybe it was our fault. At the moment, he is doing exactly what we need,” Red Bull’s technical director continued.

In the same breath, however, he added that although Hadjar is doing everything the team needs, he wants more from him in the future. “The next step will be to win races and everything, but he has his desire. He’s developing, and to be fair with him, it’s a tough job to be against the best driver,” Waché added.