Hadjar ‘really p****d’ to miss out on Singapore Qualifying as reliability woes continue

Isack Hadjar openly shared his frustration at Red Bull’s poor reliability in Singapore after he was unable to set a representative lap in Qualifying, leaving him to start Sunday’s Grand Prix at the back of the grid.

The Frenchman has had a tough time in his RB22 in recent sessions, having lost a potential podium in Malaysia due to a battery issue and he retired from the Singapore Sprint with a separate mechanical failure.

His eagerness to have a chance to showcase his speed in Qualifying – shown by his grateful radio message to his team for fixing the car – was soon quashed when he went deep before creeping back around the circuit at a slow speed, reporting that “the engine is off”.

Although he got going once again, the problems continued and he had no choice but to return to the garage, which meant that he was unclassified in the session and will subsequently line up on the last row at the start of the race.

Hadjar later confirmed that the fault was with the gearbox, as he explained: “What’s funny is that I felt nice in Sector 1, until in Turn 8 I broke the gearbox, basically. That’s it. I tried to… I don’t even know why we kept going.

“The car was absolutely damaged. I knew it was the end, but I didn’t want to stop on track, so I kept bringing the car back [to] the garage.

“I was being annoying, but honestly, I’m just craving to be out there on track, driving and doing my best. Now I’m really, really frustrated, because we’ve had issues in every session but FP1.

“I’m going to give my best. I don’t know… I think Carlos [Sainz] last year started around last [18th], and he finished 10th or something. I still want to push and bring points, but I just… I like the Qualifying, adrenaline, and [when] I don’t get to have it, I’m really p****d.”

He and team mate Max Verstappen shared contrasting fortunes as the latter finished on top in Qualifying, securing the 50th pole position of his Grand Prix career.

It demonstrated that Red Bull certainly have the speed to compete at the front in Singapore, so Team Principal Laurent Mekies readily took responsibility for Hadjar’s bad luck at a circuit where overtaking isn’t the easiest task.

“We need to send a good apology to Isack, really,” the team boss told F1 TV after Qualifying. “We didn’t give him any chance to express his speed this weekend.

“Luckily it doesn’t happen very often, but it’s been particularly frustrating this weekend – a power unit issue this morning in the Sprint and a gearbox issue this afternoon in Qualifying.

“It’s so frustrating because it’s one of the races where Qualifying position is particularly important, but we’ll fight with him tomorrow from the back of the grid to bring him back to the points.”