Jacques Villeneuve: "No doubt" Isack Hadjar will be at Red Bull in 2026

Jacques Villeneuve believes Isack Hadjar will partner Max Verstappen at Red Bull in 2026

1997 Formula 1 champion Jacques Villeneuve believes there is "no doubt" that Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar will be in the Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen in 2026.

Red Bull has struggled to find a second driver who is able to extract the same performance from the RB21 as the four-time champion has over the last 18 months.

While the Milton Keynes outfit opted to replace Sergio Perez with rookie Liam Lawson for 2025, the New Zealander found himself demoted to Racing Bulls after just two race weekends. As a result, Yuki Tsunoda stepped up ahead of his home race at Suzuka.

Villeneuve claimed that the Japanese driver was only in the seat for the remainder of 2025 as Honda paid "a lot of money" for him to be there, and there is "no doubt" that he will be replaced by Hadjar for 2026.

Hadjar scored his first F1 podium at the Dutch Grand Prix last weekend after crossing the line in third behind McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

"He is heading to Red Bull. There's no doubt there. There's no other way to spin it." Villeneuve explained on The F1 Show by Sky Sports F1. "He is being prepared for Red Bull. He was put there by Helmut Marko to see how he would cope with F1. He's been coping better than any other junior Red Bull or even other than Max, any other Red Bull driver.

Jacques Villeneuve

Photo by: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto / Getty Images

"And anyway, he doesn't decide when he goes up. He's a Red Bull driver. They decide where he drives. The only one who actually cannot be demoted is Max; he has a different contract.”

He added: "It won't happen this year. Tsunoda, independently of his lack of result, Honda paid a lot of money for that seat. So he will stick until the end of the result. He's not staying for next year. They don't want him for next year anyway. And they never really wanted him; otherwise, he would have started the season at the main team instead of Liam Lawson."

Hadjar's third-place finish at Zandvoort saw him jump up to 10th in the drivers' standings. Heading into the Italian Grand Prix weekend, he is now on the same number of points as Nico Hulkenberg in ninth place, with 37 points.