Why Alan Permane, the new team boss at Racing Bulls, had to apologize on his first race weekend in the job
Alan Permane’s debut as team boss at Racing Bulls ended with Liam Lawson scoring World Championship points in eighth place at the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps. But it could have been an even better result for the team if Isack Hadjar had also finished in the top 10. Technical problems prevented that, and Permane is taking responsibility for it.
“We have to apologize to Isack,” Permane said after the race. “He had a problem with his car from around lap eight, which caused him to lose top speed and cost him a lot of time during the race.”
Permane did not say exactly what went wrong with Hadjar’s Racing Bulls VCARB 02 from lap eight onwards. He simply said: “Without the problem, the result would certainly have been very different, because Isack had a strong car and good pace throughout the weekend.”
Step backwards for Hadjar in the Grand Prix
In fact, Hadjar was the better Racing Bulls driver in both the sprint qualifying and the sprint, scoring a World Championship point with eighth place in the sprint. Hadjar was also the faster driver in Grand Prix qualifying, albeit by just 0.018 seconds.
In the Grand Prix, however, he played virtually no role after his pit stop on lap 13 – and after his second stop on lap 20, he was even at the back of the field. Hadjar remained there and was the only driver to be lapped. Hadjar explained that this was “very frustrating” for him. He couldn’t say much more than that.
He also did not go into detail about the technical problem with the car, merely describing it as “It left me with no chance. I lost a lot of time consistently on every lap.”
What the data analysis says
The data analysis at GP Tempo confirms this impression: While Hadjar and Lawson were mostly identical in speed at the start of the race on intermediates, with a difference of only one to two tenths of a second, the lap times diverged dramatically from lap 15 onwards, after the tire changes to slicks: Hadjar lost 1.5 seconds or more in just one lap on used medium tires compared to Lawson’s new medium tires.
After his additional stop to switch to hard tires, the situation stabilized at a better level, but Hadjar remained six tenths to one second per lap behind his Racing Bulls teammate.
Hadjar said he had already accepted his fate at that point: “I was aware of it and still gave it my best. But it was extremely painful, especially on a track like this.” The technical problem had hampered him “throughout the race” and ultimately became “even worse.”
This can also be seen from the data analysis: from lap 38 onwards, Hadjar’s performance suddenly and significantly drops off: he loses 3.7 seconds, then 2.6, then 1.4 and 2.5 seconds, while Lawson simply keeps turning in consistent laps.
Hadjar cannot explain it
But Hadjar has no explanation for this: “What happened makes no sense.” He says he had no chance in the Grand Prix. “Even if I had started further up the grid, I would have been caught and overtaken,” explains the Formula 1 rookie.
This unusual vehicle behavior now needs to be analyzed: “Our goal is to understand what happened and improve. Because the pace was really good all weekend. That’s why we’re confident for Budapest.”
