Caught up in the first lap of the Chinese Grand Prix sprint, Isack Hadjar did not hide his annoyance toward Kimi Antonelli after a maneuver deemed too optimistic by the Mercedes driver.
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The sprint held on the Shanghai circuit was supposed to offer Isack Hadjar a first opportunity to score points with Red Bull. Ultimately, the Frenchman had to settle for a disappointing fifteenth place after a race marked by a collision on the first lap.
However, the start had begun quite well for the French driver. Unlike his teammate Max Verstappen, who had a catastrophic start, Hadjar had launched correctly and occupied an interesting position in the pack.
But the situation quickly became complicated when he found himself under pressure from Kimi Antonelli. The young Mercedes driver was then looking to make up for a failed start and was particularly aggressive in his overtaking attempts.
On the first lap, the Italian dived inside the Red Bull in a corner, causing contact between the two cars. The incident damaged Hadjar’s car, immediately compromising his race.
A strategy ruined by damage
This collision is all the more frustrating for Red Bull as the team had bet on a different strategy for Hadjar’s car. Unlike the majority of the pack, the Frenchman had started on soft tires.
This choice was intended to allow for quick attacks and potentially gain positions in the early laps. But with a floor severely damaged by the contact, it became impossible to exploit this strategy.
The Red Bull driver himself expressed his frustration after the finish: “We wanted to understand how the soft tires would work, and with a completely destroyed floor, we can’t work.”
The neutralization caused later by the safety car only heightened the Frenchman’s frustration, as he saw his chances of moving up the hierarchy vanish.
Hadjar criticizes Antonelli’s attitude
Very annoyed by his rival’s maneuver, Hadjar did not hesitate to criticize the Mercedes driver’s impatience after the race.
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“I don’t understand why he’s so overexcited like that when he has a rocket, and he’s going to move up anyway,” he told Canal+.
Despite everything, the Frenchman put the incident into perspective with some hindsight: “Well, it happens.”
Stewards point to Antonelli
Race stewards quickly opened an investigation after the collision. Following their analysis, they deemed Kimi Antonelli responsible for the collision.
In their report, they explain that the Mercedes attempted an overly ambitious attack in the corner concerned and that the Italian driver lost control of his car by locking a rear wheel at the corner entry.
“The stewards determined that the driver of car No. 12 was entirely responsible for the collision,” indicates the official decision. Antonelli received a ten-second penalty for this incident.
However, this penalty did not completely ruin the Mercedes driver’s race, as he ultimately finished fifth in the sprint.
A weekend that looks difficult
For Isack Hadjar, this result remains another missed opportunity to score his first points with Red Bull. After the finish, the Frenchman was clear-eyed about the difficulties encountered by his team since the start of the weekend.
“There are things to change, but we don’t expect to find a second. It will be long,” he admitted.
Red Bull will therefore have to quickly find solutions to allow its drivers to regain competitiveness on the Shanghai circuit and hope to play a more significant role during the rest of the weekend.
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