Hadjar calls Sepang "one race to put in the bin" after losing podium late on
Four laps from the end at Sepang, Isack Hadjar was running third in a Red Bull. By the chequered flag he was fifth, with both Ferraris past him.
The Frenchman had been one of the stories of the weekend. He qualified third for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, only to take a five-place grid penalty for a new internal combustion engine, which dropped him to eighth on the grid.
From there he worked his way forward through a rain-delayed, interrupted race, and held off Lewis Hamilton for many laps while the Ferrari driver was struggling on the medium tyres. George Russell's late power-unit failure behind the safety car then promoted him to third, behind team-mate Max Verstappen and Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli.
The restart exposed him. Hamilton had switched to softs under the safety car, and he and Charles Leclerc picked Hadjar off in quick succession. Hamilton took third, Leclerc fourth, and Hadjar crossed the line 8.571 seconds behind Verstappen.
Hadjar put the loss down to one thing. "No battery, something like that," he said. "There was no contest against the Ferrari in the straight."
He was less sure about the rest of it. "And I don't know what happened in terms of the grip I had on the car," Hadjar said.
His verdict on the afternoon was blunt. "The whole race I was so slow, I don't know what happened to my pace, but, yeah," he said. "Really one race to put in the bin."
That sat oddly against the result on paper, a fifth place from eighth on the grid at a chaotic race. Hadjar wasn't taking much comfort from it, though, and he was already looking for answers. "Yeah, it's fine, I just will fix the issue, understand why we are so bad today," he said.
Next on the calendar is Singapore, and Hadjar made clear he wants the explanation in hand by then. "And we go again in Singapore."
Four laps from a podium and then nothing — you can check it out here how quickly it unravelled, and honestly the "no battery" line explains more than any excuse could. Losing two places on a restart after holding off Hamilton for most of the race has to sting, and calling it a race to put in the bin feels about right. The pace issue is the real worry though, because that's not something a new engine fixes.