Hadjar blasted his Bahrain Grand Prix as a joke, after his Red Bull struggled bizarrely on Sunday. Was this a joke?
Starting eighth because of an engine penalty, he hit gravel on the wet formation lap, turning the day tricky from the outset.
Using intermediate tyres, he jumped past Liam Lawson for fourth on lap six and held the spot despite Lewis Hamilton’s late pressure.
When George Russell retired on lap 50, Hadjar inherited third, but the final four‑lap sprint after the safety car saw him drop to fifth, nearly four seconds behind Hamilton.
“No pace,” the Red Bull driver lamented. “Something was wrong; I can’t be a second a lap slower now, not even to Mercedes. We were quicker all weekend, yet the car was horrible to drive.”
“In the last laps the battery vanished, so on the straights I couldn’t fend off the Ferraris and we lost the podium on something so stupid.”
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Over the 30‑lap green‑flag run, Hadjar lost an average of 0.881 s to teammate Max Verstappen.
When asked if the slowdown stemmed from chassis degradation or the power unit, he replied: “No, chassis side. Power unit was fine; the first two laps after the restart drained the battery. It then stabilised and I was quick again. Otherwise I’d have stayed third.”
“I just felt no grip, even behind the safety car. The restart was tough, it seemed I was on the same tyres all the time. I switched to the run‑one compound… It’s a joke.”
“The whole weekend I was pretty fast, so… We need to fix the issue, come back in Singapore and do better.” In my view, Red Bull must sort this out quickly.
Red Bull still secured its first victory of the season with Max Verstappen, but Hadjar could barely see the positives when asked about it.
“Yeah, but you know, it’s not a good day for me,” he said. “I’m happy for the boys, but it’s a disaster for me.”
Hadjar’s 10 points, added to Verstappen’s 25, helped Red Bull narrow the gap to McLaren for third in the constructors’ fight, trimming the deficit from 76 to 18 points over two rounds.
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– The Team