Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar has secured the best starting spot of his F1 career so far in the Monaco GP as he will start 5th following the penalty of Lewis Hamilton.
In fact, the Racing Bulls driver put his VCARB 02 ahead of many illustrious drivers, such as Fernando Alonso, George Russell and Carlos Sainz
Strong day at the office
The young French talent finally had a strong day in the principality after crashing twice during the Friday second practice session. He also had a tough FP3, which he had ended in P17.
Hadjar discussed his strong performance during the F1 Monaco GP in the print media pen as he managed to outpace teammate Liam Lawson in Q1, Q2 and Q3, leading the best of the rest fight behind the McLarens, Ferraris and Verstappen.
“Yeah, I mean, yesterday was positive. We ended up the day pretty well with Liam. But this morning was just really poor. Confidence was not great heading into qualifying.
“Still, somehow we managed to make a big step forward every lap. Yeah, it paid off. P6 is the best we could have done.”
How it happened?
The runner up of the 2024 Formula 2 championship then described the final portion of his Qualifying session, which led to P6 in the session itself. Nevertheless, he was not pleased with it.
“Honestly, it was not clean. I think our car was not super easy to drive. I felt like I had done a few mistakes, trying to do too much.
“I went over the limit in a few corners, but it’s the way to go fast around here.
“Yeah, I believed it, but I didn’t expect the setback in FP3. So that worried me a lot, but at the same time, Liam still had a good FP3, so there was no reason to worry about Qualifying.”.
Great chance to prove his worth tomorrow
“We have the same car, I had to make that step, and that’s what I did,” he continued, highlighting the impact of his own performance.
Hadjar also discussed the plan for his race tomorrow, which will be the first to feature the two compulsory stops in the F1 Monaco GP.
“Yeah, I think a lot is going to happen, and a lot is not in my hands tomorrow.
“But, you know, I haven’t put my hand around strategy. Just trying to qualify well, having good pace on one lap here is using a lot of brain capacity. So I look into a strategy later on. Yeah, we need good pace as well.”
While he reckons it will be tough to hold on to so many points, Hadjar is hopeful for a second points finish in a row.
“The guys ahead are the top boys, so if our pace is matching them, then we can race them. But it is a bit unlikely to happen.”
