Verstappen beaten by Hadjar again as Red Bull's decision to promote Hadjar is vindicated

All weekend Hadjar has looked in good shape at Silverstone. On this historic circuit where Verstappen has so often shone, it was Hadjar who was Red Bull's brightest light.

After the sprint qualifying, Hadjar had expressed his disappointment that he couldn’t have put in a better performance, suggesting that while he struggled, Verstappen had managed the performance gap: “But Max managed it, so that’s what I need to look at,” the Frenchman said after Friday’s sprint qualifying.

However, the following day, Hadjar had paid close attention to Verstappen's laps. In every qualifying segment the young driver was right in the mix, and in the final segment—the one that matters—Hadjar was, for the second time in 2026, faster than Verstappen.

After also winning the qualifying duel in Japan, the score is now 6–2 in favour of the Dutchman, given that the qualifying in Australia did not especially count because Verstappen retired due to a crash that wasn’t his fault.

Not only the head-to-head in qualifying, but also the average gap in qualifying between the two Red Bull drivers is smaller than it has been in years.

Sergio Perez was a breath of fresh air compared to Alexander Albon and Pierre Gasly who struggled to match Verstappen for pace, but even in his best period the Mexican was on average more than three tenths behind the Dutchman. Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda certainly didn’t do better than Perez in 2025.

In 2026, Hadjar appears to be on the mark. Verstappen's pedigree and titles means that he remains as the team's No.1 but with Hadjar now averaging lap times within two tenths of the Dutchman, Red Bull can genuinely work on setup development from both sides of the garage.

Over one lap, there hasn’t been a driver who stayed this close to Verstappen over an extended period for a long time. The last to manage that was Daniel Ricciardo, although we have to go back to 2016 and 2017 for that.

In 2018, Verstappen managed to turn the tide and was clearly the stronger of the two in qualifying by the end.

The area for improvement for Hadjar is still the race. When both have finished, Hadjar has yet to end up ahead of his teammate.

At Silverstone he now has his best chance from P5, with Verstappen starting from P7. That will, however, require the RB22’s starts to be much better than they were in the sprint race.