Hadjar’s Singapore weekend went badly wrong. Red Bull accepts the blame. The rookie wants a car that lets him fight.
Isack Hadjar left Singapore frustrated after a sequence of mechanical failures wrecked his weekend and left him pleading for a more reliable car. A power loss ended his Sprint, then a gearbox problem stopped him setting a qualifying time. Red Bull Racing changed his power unit between sessions, but the fix did not spare him from further trouble. Cleared by the stewards to start from the pit lane, Hadjar fought back to 10th and snatched a point from Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. His result stood in stark contrast to team-mate Max Verstappen, who claimed a second straight win in the RB22.
The contrast sharpened a difficult run for Hadjar, who had already lost positions after a battery issue during a late safety-car restart in Malaysia. He had shown what clean execution could deliver with a podium in Baku, but Singapore offered no comparable chance to demonstrate his pace. As team pressure mounted, team boss Laurent Mekies admitted that Red Bull had not given the Frenchman a proper opportunity to compete. The weekend exposed how quickly Red Bull struggles with reliability can turn a promising F1 experience into damage control.
Hadjar’s Singapore F1 experience: failures from Sprint to qualifying
The first blow came early in the Sprint, when Hadjar lost power and had to retire. Red Bull then installed an older power unit from his allocation before qualifying, but gearbox trouble struck in Q1 and prevented him from recording a lap. That left the team seeking permission from the stewards for him to start Sunday’s race.
Hadjar made the most of the opening he was given. From the pit lane, he climbed to 10th, turning a weekend with almost no competitive running into a point-scoring recovery. His pace offered a glimpse of the driver performance Red Bull believes it missed, while Gasly paid the price when the late move pushed him out of the points. Hadjar’s progress from junior prospect to the F1 grid is traced in this look at his F2 challenge.
Red Bull Racing takes responsibility for Hadjar’s mechanical troubles
Mekies did not dress up the weekend. He said the team had given Hadjar no chance to complete meaningful competitive laps before the grand prix, and accepted that the failures were Red Bull’s responsibility. The problems ranged across the power unit, gearbox and other glitches, forcing mechanics to replace major components right up to the race start.
The pressure reached both sides of the garage. Max Verstappen’s crew joined Hadjar’s mechanics in the recovery effort, with the work stretching across a demanding run of races in hot, humid conditions. Mekies praised their turnaround and said the car ran faultlessly on Sunday, but that late success could not restore the track time lost earlier. The episode also adds context to calls for Red Bull to learn from its mistakes.
Hadjar targets a reset and a chance to fight for wins
Hadjar said he was desperate for a car that worked better so he could fight for victory. He also called for the team to reset, understand what had gone wrong since Malaysia and return in Austin ready to contend for podiums. That ambition is not abstract: the Baku result showed he can convert a clean weekend into a major finish when reliability and execution align.
He was equally clear about the human cost, praising the mechanics who worked so hard for a single point and saying they deserved more. For a driver building his racing career inside a race-winning operation, the next step is not simply speed; it is repeatable access to the car’s potential. Red Bull’s response will shape Hadjar’s season and the wider motorsport debate around how a team balances a leading contender with a developing team-mate. His Baku podium story is detailed in this report on the result and stewards’ review.
