Round 16 of the 2025 F1 season brought plenty of drama at the Italian GP. Max Verstappen stormed to another dominant victory ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. But further down the field, one of the standout performances came from rookie Isack Hadjar. He clawed his way from a pit-lane start to secure a valuable point in 10th place.
What happened to Hadjar at the F1 Italian GP?
Isack Hadjar was forced to start from the pit lane following power unit changes after qualifying. It left the Frenchman with a mountain to climb, but he relished the challenge.
“Yeah, I mean, I had fun, I think we deserved that point, because we had a really good phase yesterday, and obviously before qualifying we knew we were going to start at the end of the grid. So that was very frustrating. But yeah, we did a really good comeback, and the pace was really strong, so yeah, we deserved it,” Hadjar reflected when talking after the race in the print media pen.
The early stages of the race saw retirements and collisions shake up the midfield order. Carlos Sainz and Ollie Bearman tangled in the fight for P13, an incident which Hadjar capitalised on to move up the order. Despite being stuck in heavy traffic for much of the afternoon, the Racing Bulls rookie kept his cool.
“Honestly, no, I thought we were going to be stuck in a DRS train. But we made it work in free air on the hard tyre, and the degradation was just super low, so it really helped us,” he explained when asked if he could make it into the points-finishers.
Transitioning from Saturday to Sunday
Hadjar admitted that his mindset wasn’t fully sharp heading into qualifying, knowing he would have to start from the back regardless.
“I mean, to be honest, yesterday, I don’t even think I was in the right mindset going into qualifying. You know you’re going to start last, and you’re trying to help the team, so I really put my performance aside. And yeah, we got knocked out, but in the real qualifying, I would never be out of the top 16, that’s for sure.”
Even so, he was proud of the way he bounced back in the race, securing Racing Bulls a crucial point in a season where every finish counts.
“Yeah, the podium isn’t the norm, so finishing in the top 10 is the goal of every weekend. I think I did pretty well from the pit lane.”
How did the team help?
The Racing Bulls built Hadjar’s strategy around an opening stint on hard tyres. This gave him the consistency needed to push all the way to the flag.
“Honestly, I didn’t think about it. I just pushed like a man throughout the race. There was no tyre degradation, so I just used the car’s rhythm, and we were going really fast,” he said.
For Hadjar, the Italian GP was proof of his resilience and maturity behind the wheel. Starting from the pit lane could have spelt disaster. But instead, he turned it into one of his strongest showings of the year.
