After an excellent start in Melbourne, Isack Hadjar was hoping to play a leading role in the Australian Grand Prix. But an engine failure quickly put an end to his ambitions.
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The start of the race seemed like a perfect scenario for Isack Hadjar during the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix. On the Albert Park circuit, the Red Bull Racing driver immediately stood out as the lights went out.
Thanks to a perfect reaction at the start, the Frenchman gained several positions in the first few meters. He notably managed to overtake Andrea Kimi Antonelli and quickly found himself in contact with the leaders.
During the opening moments of the race, Hadjar even found himself battling directly with George Russell and Charles Leclerc. A battle that suggested an exciting race for the young driver, who was clearly capable of joining the fight for the podium. But this promising start already hid a major problem.
An engine problem detected from the first corners
Very quickly after the start, Hadjar felt that something was wrong with his car. According to him, the engine’s behavior changed almost immediately, suggesting an imminent failure. The Frenchman explained that he realized very early on that his race was likely to end prematurely.
“I knew the engine was going to explode from the first corner. The sound totally changed after the start.”
At the same time, the hybrid system battery stopped working correctly, depriving the car of a significant part of its power. This combination of problems quickly compromised his chances of finishing the race.
Deprived of the usual energy deployment and faced with an engine whose sound was unusual, Hadjar understood that the situation would inevitably deteriorate. He even compared the sound of his car to that of a car from a completely different category.
“I got a great start, but then I had no battery left. And the noise… I felt like I was driving a V8 Supercar. It was nonsense and I knew it was going to break at some point.”
Under these conditions, retirement seemed inevitable.
Great frustration after a solid weekend
This failure is all the more frustrating for Hadjar as his car’s performance seemed promising throughout the weekend.
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During Friday’s free practice, the pace was encouraging and the engine’s operation seemed perfectly stable. The driver therefore hoped to find those feelings again in the race.
“It’s not what I wanted. I wanted the car to behave like Friday, where the pace was good and the engine was working normally.”
With his excellent start, Hadjar believes he could have even taken the lead of the race and fought with the other top drivers.
“With that start, we would surely have taken the lead and could have had fun with the others.”
Solid work unrewarded
Despite this retirement, the Frenchman believes he had a very clean weekend in terms of driving. He claims he made no mistakes and felt comfortable in his car throughout the weekend.
“I don’t even count the number of problems I’ve had with the car anymore. This weekend I did a good job, I didn’t make any mistakes.”
According to him, a solid result was within reach, with a possible fight for the top positions behind the leaders: “We could have fought for third or fourth place.”
For Hadjar, the main thing now will be to understand precisely the origin of this failure in order to prevent this scenario from happening again in the next races of the season.
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