and Isack Hadjar 6.
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Isack Hadjar will join Yuki Tsunoda for the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship
20-year-old Isack has been driving for the prestigious Campos Racing team in F2 where he quickly established himself as one of the most promising young prospects. Isack’s trajectory has continued on the sharp upward curve of recent years, with big wins coming at classic Grand Prix venues including Imola, Spa-Francorchamps and Silverstone.
Isack will be following the footsteps of Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo as he becomes the 19th driver to be promoted to Formula One from the Red Bull Junior Program, which started back in 2001.
Isack Hadjar, said: “I’m very excited to step into my new role at VCARB, this is huge for myself, my family and all the people who have believed in me from the beginning. The journey from karting through the ranks in single-seaters, to now being in Formula One is the moment I’ve been working towards my whole life, it is the dream. I feel like I’m stepping into a whole new universe, driving a much faster car and racing with the best drivers in the world. It’ll be a huge learning curve, but I’m ready to work hard and do the best I can for the team. I look forward to working with and learning from Yuki, I’ve always looked up to him, he went through the Red Bull Junior Program, like myself, and we’ve shared a similar path to F1. He’s very experienced and will be good to learn from.”
Laurent Mekies, Team Principal of Visa Cash App Racing Bulls said: “We’re excited to have Isack with us next year, bringing a new and fresh dynamic to the team alongside Yuki in 2025. His journey to Formula One has been nothing short of outstanding, he has shown remarkable growth, with a series of impressive results in the junior single-seater ranks. He has the talent and drive necessary to compete at the highest level, and we have every confidence that he will adapt quickly and make a significant impact. I believe Isack and Yuki will make a great team. Yuki brings invaluable experience to the team, he’s shown incredible resilience and maturity, which will be crucial for the team as we strive to hit all our aims and objectives in 2025.”
Peter Bayer, CEO of Visa Cash App Racing Bulls said: “Firstly, we must congratulate Liam for his step up to Oracle Red Bull Racing. As a sister team and as an incubator for Formula One talent, our strategic objective is to foster and nurture our drivers in preparation for this next step. With this move and by bringing Isack into VCARB, it’s a testament to our longstanding commitment to develop the best young drivers in motorsport, as well as proof of concept of the Red Bull Junior Program. Having a younger driver supports our mission to speak to a younger audience, so we look forward to bringing new and existing fans on the journey with us.”
Read here what Mekies has to say about it.‘Game-changing’ Racing Bulls move underway as brand-new facility comes online
Racing Bulls’ transition across to working in its new Milton Keynes facility has begun, with its days operating out of Bicester coming to an end.
Having operated out of its Bicester facility for aerodynamic work for many years, the Racing Bulls squad has moved into brand-new offices at the Red Bull Technology Campus in Milton Keynes.
“The Milton Keynes office is ready,” Peter Bayer said.
“We have had the IT guys there actually fitting it out, making it, because the plan is to have everything ready for the people, over the shutdown, to make the move and to be operational as of January 2, to not lose any time in terms of the development, model shop, the wind tunnel, and everything.
“So there won’t be any losses and it’s a game-changer because it’s a state-of-the-art facility.
“Bicester is still, more or less, the old Reynard facility. We put in a couple of new desks and a new carpet, but that’s about it. So there’s no parking, no canteen, and no supermarket around to get some food. The gym is tiny and old. It’s just not up to date anymore.
“It’s also too small for us, actually.
“We’ve not had enough space. The guys, like Jody [Egginton – VCARB technical director] and Alan [Permane – VCARB racing director], when they’re both in the office, they have an office the size of this table that they’re sharing back to back.
“I think it’s part of being an attractive employer – obviously to have nice working facilities and that’s what will change.”
With preparation work for the F1 2025 season already well underway, the capabilities of the new facilities aren’t likely to translate into performance gains in the immediate future, but Bayer suspects the team won’t have to wait until 2026’s regulations changes to start reaping the rewards of the move.
“A nice office doesn’t necessarily give you lap time, but it does, immediately, make us a more attractive employer, because, in Milton Keynes, we’ll have a nice canteen,” he said, “And, for the time being, we won’t have a gym, but we’ll have a contract with a local gym where the guys can go until ours is ready.
“The model shop, because, again, we’re building with all new machinery there, everything will be state-of-the-art and we’re investing into new CFD facilities.
“So it might, and should, actually give us a bit of a boost for 2025 already.”
Yuki Tsunoda, the Visa Cash App RB driver, has expressed that he would have loved the chance to become Max Verstappen's teammate at Red Bull Racing in 2025. However, to his disappointment, his teammate Liam Lawson was promoted to the top team instead. Tsunoda acknowledged that the outcome was partly due to his own performance but also influenced by decisions made by the Milton Keynes-based team.
Yuki Tsunoda is frustrated at the prospect of remaining with Red Bull's sister team for a fifth consecutive Formula 1 season. The Japanese driver, who scored 30 points in the previous season, believes his early performances in F1 may have created doubts about his capabilities. "I think that part of it is kind of my fault because I wasn't really able to perform straight away in the first year," Tsunoda told Motorsport.com.
"Even though I was performing well (In 2024), I feel like I didn't get really get credit as much as probably other drivers get, but it is what it is. I just naturally, just keep what I'm doing and performing well and just prove them wrong. I just try to give them (Red Bull) fewer excuses or reasons why I am not in the seat. So, I just focus on what I can control those things other than that, just accept the situation. I'm sure I can do a better job than what they are thinking."
"I would say the communications side has improved, mainly my language on the radio. The calmness, I would say, is also definitely improved, more technical feedback, more focused. I can definitely feel the improvement throughout the year and I'm very happy with it. What I have to improve more is still the technical feedback, especially the amount of feedback you can give in the race, I think I definitely can say more, and sometimes it's not really consistent.
"For us it was more difficult to consistently show our performance. Even though you have a good performance, sometimes the car's performance doesn't really follow that. But still, I'm pretty happy with the consistency so far. I always say I could have done a couple of races much better, but I showed I'm pretty consistent.
"I started really well, and I was in the points pretty consistently, because also the car was pretty good. At some point, and we weren't able to improve our car with upgrades and actually Haas and other competitors started to overtake our car performance."
Tsunoda says he has felt "massive support" from Racing Bulls' management Laurent Mekies and Peter Bayer.
"To be honest, I don't really care much about what people are saying on social media, because they don't know what exactly happening. It only matters what the team thinks about me, and I feel definitely a massive support from the team. They understood every race what happened, and definitely I got a lot of trust from them. That's what always matters and I really appreciated those efforts from them."
