Isack Hadjar was furious after a part failure on his car cost him a strong finish in the Qatar Grand Prix.

The Racing Bulls driver was on course to equal his second-best finish of the season with sixth place when the front-left wheel deflector came off his car with three laps to go. It caused a puncture which forced him out of the race.

“The front wing broke by itself and it went under the car, cut the tyre, for absolutely no reason,” Hadjar told Viaplay after the race. “It just broke by itself.”

“I’m driving a Lego car apparently,” he added.

Hadjar pulled into the pits after the failure, prior to which he was on course for his second consecutive sixth-place finish. Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane expressed the team’s regret over the fault.

“First of all, we apologise to Isack for the failure on his car,” he said. “The front wheel deflector broke which we think is likely a consequence of the heavy kerbing here. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t do that, and we will investigate how it happened.”

Racing Bulls experienced a similar failure earlier in the season when Yuki Tsunoda’s front wing broke during the Chinese Grand Prix.

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Hadjar’s deflector was visibly at risk of failure for several laps. However following an investigation the stewards decided not to penalise him for driving a car which was in an unsafe condition.

“The driver reported to the team that the wheel guard was moving,” they noted. “Race control spoke with the team and in accordance with document F1TM/07-24, which is referred to in item 11 of the Event Notes for this event and hence applicable to this event, passed the responsibility to the team to judge if the situation was dangerous.

“That TM document provides that if a part of a car detaches, it can be reported to the stewards as being unsafe. The TM defines the conditions where the FIA would deem a detachment as unsafe as follows:

“Any situation of loss of control of the damaged car, apparently related to the further failure and/or detachment of the damaged component(s) from the car. Any situation requiring a race intervention (either VSC or SC) to remove the debris resulting from the further failure and/or detachment of the damaged component(s) from the car from the circuit. Any situation of contact between a following car and such debris resulting from the further failure and/or detachment of the components from the car, and where the following car suffers an immediate and obvious consequence, such as damage or tyre puncture.

“In this particular case, none of the above conditions applied hence we determine to take no further action.”

However the stewards issued one of the strongest sanctions available – a 10-second stop-and-go penalty – to Oliver Bearman after his Haas team released his car from its pit box in an unsafe condition as its left-rear wheel was not attached. The stewards judged this necessary despite the fact Bearman only moved forwards a few metres.

“The left rear wheel was not attached to the car during the pit stop and the car was released and moved such that the rear of the car was at the end of the pit box,” they noted. “The regulations provide that the car must not move from the ‘pit stop position’ and we determine that the definition of the ‘pit stop position’ is the position where the car is normally located when it is stationary for a pit stop. Therefore a breach of the regulations has occurred and this breach requires a mandatory penalty according to the regulations, of a 10-second stop-and-go.”

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