Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar perplexed after shocking Q2 exit: “Nightmare”

After a Q2 exit for Isack Hadjar, the Racing Bulls driver was frustrated after a “nightmare” performance that brought his Saturday to an early end. 

After setting a strong lap in Q1 that would have placed him in Q3, he will start P13 for Sunday’s race at the Red Bull Ring. His Q1 lap time of 1:05.063s would have placed him P8 on the grid for tomorrow, but the driver will have to rely on his race pace to make up for a difficult Saturday. 

Speaking immediately after the session, the Algerian-French driver failed to explain what led to his drop in performance compared to previous race weekends. 

“I don’t know, my Q1 lap would have qualified me for Q3, so I don’t know how we can go backwards from that,” he explained before describing his Q2 performance as a “nightmare”. 

“Tons of understeer in high speed, tyres not ready for Turn 1, just a nightmare,” he told the press. “I think we were very consistent on tyre warm-up, we nailed the traffic, so it’s deeper than this.” 

The rookie has shown impressive driving throughout his first season in Formula 1, with the driver currently 10th in the drivers’ standings, five places ahead of Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda and eight ahead of his team-mate Liam Lawson. 

Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls Team

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“We’re not far off and we have new tyres left at least, so that’s a positive,” Hadjar continued. “Yesterday we were not in a good position, we turned things around overnight with a lot of changes on the car, and it paid off.”

On being asked what could have changed between Q1 and Q2, the driver was perplexed. 

“I don’t know, I was in the car 10 minutes ago, so I can’t tell you that.”

While Hadjar had a difficult session, his team-mate Lawson finished his Saturday in an impressive P6.

“Feels like it’s been a long time so it’s really cool to obviously have a good quali,” Lawson explained to the media. “Obviously with everything going on behind the scenes over the last couple of races, everything’s felt really good, honestly. I’ve felt really good, and we’ve done a lot of work on the car and on my side as well just to make it more comfortable for me.

“It’s been there, it just hasn’t shown. So it’s nice to show it today, bit obviously tomorrow is also the important day.”

Photos from Austrian GP – Practice and Qualifying