Karun Chandhok has argued that Isack Hadjar's fate at Red Bull lies in which 'philosophical' direction the Milton Keynes outfit takes in 2026.
Red Bull has struggled to find a team-mate for four-time champion Max Verstappen in recent years who has been able to extract the same level of performance out of the car as the Dutchman.
Liam Lawson replaced Sergio Perez at Red Bull for 2025, but found himself moved back to Racing Bulls after just two grand prix weekends, with Yuki Tsunoda taking his place. Now, Hadjar is set to replace the Japanese driver in the seat alongside Verstappen in 2026 as Tsunoda moves into the reserve driver role.
"I think ultimately it comes back to a philosophical decision at Red Bull," Chandhok said when asked on the Sky Sports F1 Show if Hadjar could face a similar fate as his predecessors.
"Are they chasing the constructors’ championship? In which case, they've got to find a way to develop a car that two drivers can drive and score points. Because Max came within two points of the drivers' [title] but they were miles behind in the constructors' [championship].
"So are they thinking of the prestige that goes with the drivers' world championship? And we're going to put all our eggs with Max and chase that and then you don't have the problem that McLaren have got, which is the intra-team battle and trying to manage it.
"So for me it's a philosophical decision that Red Bull management have got to make. How much do they want to have the second car in the fight? I think this year we saw an extreme of it, actually.
"Another what-if in terms of Max not winning this year was what if the second Red Bull was better, because if there were those two or three wins that Max had if Yuki was second that would have been enough to knock Lando [Norris] or Oscar [Piastri] further down that could have been a championship.
"So they do need to do something. I think even to just get the drivers' [title] they do need to do something to get the second driver more comfortable in the car. At least there's no way they need him to be beating Max, but certainly good enough to be getting podiums on a regular basis as Checo was in 2021.”
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