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Isack Hadjar was left completely baffled by the behaviour of his Red Bull during Formula 1 Sprint Qualifying at the Singapore Grand Prix, unable to find a logical explanation for his lack of pace.
The Frenchman struggled from the weekend's sole practice session, complaining that the floor of his RB22 was bottoming out excessively. He recorded the fourth-fastest time on the hard tyres in that session, briefly outpacing Max Verstappen, but fell seven-tenths behind the Dutchman after switching to the medium compound.
Those same medium slicks were required for the first two segments of Sprint Qualifying, where Hadjar trailed his teammate by 0.705s and 0.246s respectively.
In the decisive SQ3 shootout, drivers fitted the soft compound for the first time all weekend as mandated by the regulations. Hadjar set a lap time of 1:32.048—0.892 seconds adrift of Verstappen's benchmark—before the French driver's effort was deleted for track limits violations regardless.
"I don't know what to say. The day started so promisingly, but turned into an extremely poor showing. I felt great at the start of practice, but only on the hard tyres—and that was it," Hadjar said. "I never managed to hook up a clean lap, I was constantly fighting the car. On the final run, I also ran into engine issues. I was just struggling massively. I don't know, it's really strange."
Asked if he immediately felt a lack of performance on the soft tyres, Hadjar replied: "I don't know. The soft compound definitely brings a big step up in grip compared to the medium, but that didn't matter because everyone else was on the same tyre. Right now, it just feels like this car is impossible to drive."
Hadjar is set to start the Sprint from ninth on the grid. Verstappen clinched pole position—a surprise even to himself—though the Dutchman remained under investigation for an alleged yellow flag infringement.
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