Isack Hadjar, like teammate Max Verstappen, experienced a disappointing weekend at Suzuka. The Red Bull driver even finished outside the points, due in part to bad luck with the safety car and battery problems. Additionally, according to the French-Algerian driver, the RB22 was ‘undriveable’: ‘It was even dangerous’, said Hadjar.
Isack Hadjar qualified ahead of Max Verstappen for the third time this season on Saturday in Suzuka, but finished behind his teammate in twelfth place a day later. The Red Bull driver already lost three places in the opening phase and struggled with his RB22 throughout the rest of the race.
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When asked about the poor result by the media present after the race, the Frenchman did not mince words: “This doesn’t even represent one percent of how bad this race was. So it’s not a disaster. I just want to understand why those battery problems occurred so early. I felt fine in eighth place. The plan was to fight with Pierre Gasly, and we were doing that, but it all fell through when the battery was empty. And then you’re just powerless.”
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‘RB22 was undriveable’
Hadjar then got into a scrap with rookie Arvid Lindblad. The Racing Bulls driver defended hard and even received a black-and-white flag for ‘moving under braking’. “That wasn’t really helpful for either of us, but it’s okay. He’s still young,” said Hadjar. The French-Algerian driver then had bad luck with the timing of his safety car. “We didn’t have good pace anyway,” Hadjar continued on Canal+. “That was to be expected, but it was even worse than earlier this weekend. The car was truly undriveable – it was even dangerous. That made it difficult.”
Now that F1 enters a five-week break following the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, Hadjar still has little reason for optimism. “The only positive at the moment is that I can drive the car fast. But we have no idea how to make the car fast.” Hadjar has only collected four World Championship points in his three races as a Red Bull driver.
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