Hadjar unhappy with his RB22's performance: “It’s a disaster”
Written by Bo Helmus
After a difficult start to the season, Red Bull is finally back fighting at the front. After three pole positions and race wins in a row, including Sprint results, things are looking up for the team from Milton Keynes.
It does seem like Red Bull have turned a corner since the summer break, but unfortunately, that only applies to one side of the garage. After finishing third in Baku, Isack Hadjar can’t keep up with the improved pace.
Trouble in paradise
The 22-year-old finished fifth in Malaysia and had troubles with his car in Singapore, leaving him with only one point. Unfortunately for the Frenchman, things aren’t going much smoother in Austin.
A fourteenth place and 1.6 seconds behind his teammate in the first free practice and a ninth place 0.9 seconds behind Max Verstappen make it clear that something is not clicking for Hadjar, who once was right on the Dutchman’s tail.
Hadjar explained how this happened: “We had an okay FP1, and then in FP2 I felt okay as well on the medium [tyre], even though we changed the car. And [on] the soft [tyre], honestly, the car was completely gone for me. So yeah, very difficult to drive.”
Changes
The Frenchman isn’t happy with the changes the team made in between the sessions: “I need to turn things around tomorrow, sit down and see what we can do, because the car made a massive step down.
“We need to bring it back at least to the level it was this morning. It's just a disaster. After Sector 1, basically, where I made most of my lap time, from Sector 1 to the end of the lap, I was slower than on the medium.
“It was just undriveable, and I was losing the front end massively. So we need to have a look, because that's not normal, why there's so much deg on one lap.”
Improving balance
Verstappen had no such problems on Friday, driving with a similar setup. The Frenchman doesn’t feel very confident about that: “Yeah, if they managed to do it on the other side. It's like the temperatures are going sky high, and we're going at the same speed.
“So we need to tweak something on the car balance, because we're running different stuff. You need to try. But to have such a bad feeling, I'm a bit surprised, to be honest.”
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