Autobayng News Team
Isack Hadjar says he has been working hard to understand why he fell further behind his team mate at the last race.
Red Bull introduced a significant upgrade for its RB22 in Miami. Max Verstappen used it to qualify on the front row of the grid but Hadjar appeared less comfortable in his upgraded car from the outset and was much further off Verstappen’s pace than usual.
Hadjar qualified ahead of his team mate in Australia, where an apparent technical problem caused Verstappen to spin out in Q1, and at Suzuka, where the younger driver was ahead by 0.158 seconds. Verstappen out-qualified Hadjar by a tenth of a second at the Chinese Grand Prix, but the gap between the pair in Miami was over eight tenths.
The unexpected change prompted investigations at Red Bull’s base prior to this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, said Hadjar.
“There was a lot of work ongoing since I arrived here to understand, go deep in the analysis, to understand why I was this far away, why on our side of the garage we had so many issues,” he said. “Definitely we didn’t do a good job, but we’re going to certainly do a lot better this weekend.”
Hadjar’s Miami weekend was further compromised when his car failed a post-qualifying technical check. He was disqualified and ultimately started the race from the pit lane. Hadjar made his way up to 16th before crashing out on lap five.
He indicated Red Bull have not brought significant changes to their car this weekend but said he expects the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will play to the RB22’s strengths.
“It depends on what the other teams brought [but] we didn’t do anything for this weekend.
“I expect our car to be working well in this speed range. There’s no high-speed corners, so it should definitely suit us a bit better. So I’m confident performance-wise we can replicate something close to Miami.”
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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 – when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring journalist, Keith began running the site full-time in 2010, achieving a long-held ambition to dedicate his full attention to his passion for motor racing. View all posts by Keith Collantine
