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From Speed to Hadjar: These drivers made their F1 debut with Red Bull’s B team

Isack Hadjar will be the 14th driver to make his Formula 1 debut with Red Bull’s sister team: these are his predecessors

Whether it’s Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri or Racing Bulls: the team has basically always been Red Bull’s little sister team. When they took over Minardi after the 2005 season, the team had only one purpose: to bring juniors into Formula 1 and train them for Red Bull.

Sometimes it worked better and sometimes worse. Although there had always been drivers who couldn’t cope with the pressure in the A-team, Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen or Daniel Ricciardo have proven that the plan can work well.

Incidentally, only one of these three drivers made his Grand Prix debut with Toro Rosso, namely Max Verstappen. The Dutchman started his Formula One adventure alongside Carlos Sainz in 2015 and just over a year later found himself at Red Bull, where he won his first race in Barcelona.

Sebastian Vettel, on the other hand, had already lined up for BMW-Sauber before his first race with the team, when he was allowed to replace the injured Robert Kubica in Indianapolis in 2007. And Daniel Ricciardo had already spent half a year with backbencher HRT in the run-up to the season.

Unsurprisingly, the list of debutants in the team from Faenza consists mainly of Red Bull juniors – but not all drivers were part of the Austrian beverage manufacturer’s squad beforehand.

Sebastien Bourdais was already a star in the US before he joined Toro Rosso with four ChampCar titles under his belt – and there he failed against Vettel.

With Isack Hadjar, the 2025 Formula 1 season will see the 14th driver make his debut with the Minardi successor. Eleven of these debuts were with Toro Rosso and two with AlphaTauri. Hadjar will be the first to make his Formula 1 debut under the Racing Bulls banner.

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