For Isack Hadjar, Montreal is more than a circuit on the 2026 calendar. It is the city where he first stayed up past his bedtime as a kid to watch Formula 1 make history. As the Red Bull rookie prepares for his first ever Canadian Grand Prix weekend, he allowed the Oracle Red Bull Racing Virtual Laps cameras into his preparation — and let slip a memory that will resonate with any fan who grew up rooting for an underdog in the rain.
The reference is Jenson Button's improbable 2011 Canadian Grand Prix victory, a race that started in mid-afternoon, ran into a two-hour red flag for torrential rain, and finished four hours later with Button having come from last to first across multiple safety cars and a final-lap pass on Sebastian Vettel.
"I remember 2011 Grand Prix here. I was staying up until very late even though I had to go to school the next day, to watch the ending of that race," Hadjar said. "I hope we can have a similar race again this year, because it was very exciting."
For a 21-year-old preparing for his first competitive lap of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in a Formula 1 car, the comment lands somewhere between fan and competitor. The 2011 race is taught in modern F1 culture almost like a moral lesson — that on a sprint weekend with a 50 percent chance of rain forecast for Sunday and overnight temperatures dropping to four degrees, anything can still happen.
The other thread of the conversation centred on the most feared piece of asphalt in Canadian Grand Prix history: the Wall of Champions on the exit of the final chicane, which has caught Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve in a single 1999 afternoon and has been swallowing F1 cars at random ever since.
"Starting right by the Wall of Champions as well — I said, how much do you dare push when you're starting a lap towards that Wall of Champions before you've even started?" Hadjar said. "It's definitely a tricky start of the lap, but you want to go as fast as you can in that chicane to arrive with the most speed possible before turn one. So, yeah, it's definitely a challenge."
In the simulator session captured by Red Bull, Hadjar produced a 1:12.753 — a representative dry lap in conditions he himself flagged as unrepresentative of what Montreal can deliver in race trim.
"It's very, very tricky," he added. "When it rains, it pours around here. It is one of those circuits where in Montreal, you just don't know what the weather's going to throw at you. I haven't experienced rain yet on this track. So, maybe this year. That would be fun."
The sim-driver alongside Hadjar, Yannick, drew the cleanest parallel between the rookie's wide-eyed enthusiasm and the realities of any wet F1 weekend at this circuit.
"I've driven much on every track, wet, dry. You know, we got to be prepared for everything," Yannick said.
The combination of those three threads — a teenager's memory of Jenson Button in the rain, a rookie's respect for the Wall of Champions, and a representative dry simulator lap — paints a picture of an F1 driver still tethered to the version of himself who fell in love with the sport on a school night. Montreal demands respect on a sprint weekend with four-degree nights, a 70 percent safety car probability and the prospect of Sunday rain. Hadjar's lap and his answers suggest he is taking the respect part seriously — and quietly hoping, like the fan he used to be, for the rain to come.
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