Isack Hadjar is having a disappointing weekend in Miami: Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies is nevertheless “not worried” about his driver’s condition
After Isack Hadjar had made a convincing debut with Red Bull and performed on par with teammate Max Verstappen in the first three races of the season, the 21-year-old Frenchman with Algerian roots was brought back down to earth for the first time in Miami.
Already in Friday’s Sprint Qualifying, there was a gap of nearly a second to the four-time Formula 1 world champion, and in both the Sprint and the subsequent Qualifying on Saturday, the Red Bull rookie was unable to significantly close the gap to his Dutch teammate.
To make matters worse, he was disqualified because the so-called underbody panels (“floor bibs”) on his RB22 protruded two millimeters too far. The comeback attempt in the race, which Hadjar had to start from the pits, came to an early end: After just a few laps, he crashed into the concrete wall following a driving error.
Isack Hadjar admits: “This is new to me”
“I’m really furious,” the 21-year-old said bluntly after his retirement. “I was too impatient and too excited to make those moves, and I ruined it for myself. It was just too easy to overtake, and I should have been more careful. There was no point in driving at the limit in that corner.“
”This is the first time I’ve had such big problems with my pace,“ Hadjar admits to Sky UK. ”This is new to me, and I really have to work hard because I don’t want to experience a second weekend like this.” However, his team doesn’t believe the Frenchman will be left with lasting scars from this setback.
“I don’t think we should worry about that,” explains Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies. “We had a difficult weekend. That didn’t exactly improve our performance. In terms of driving technique and rhythm, he hasn’t found the right rhythm yet.”
Mekies is convinced: Hadjar “would have been strong in the race”
“I think he would have been strong in the race, and for the little he was able to show, it was also strong.” At the time of the crash, which happened on the fifth lap of the race, Hadjar had already made up seven positions and was in 15th place.
“I don’t think we need to worry,” Mekies emphasizes again, also holding the team accountable: “We certainly didn’t have a smooth weekend, and we didn’t help him either by having to start him from the back of the grid after our mistake regarding the car’s legality.”
“So no, don’t worry,” the Red Bull team principal dismisses the poor weekend as a blip. “It wasn’t a smooth weekend, but everything points to us having the right pace again in Montreal.”
