With just three points separating Racing Bulls in P6 and Aston Martin in P7, both teams are hungry to bag any and every available point. What makes them even more desperate is the 39-point gap Williams is sitting comfortably with for P5 in the table. Precisely because of these reasons, Racing Bulls looked to be in the best position at the F1 Mexico City GP as Isack Hadjar found himself in P8 on the starting grid. Neither of the other two teams managed to put any of their drivers in the top-10 starting positions.
The opportunities, however, faded away as both Racing Bulls drivers made some costly mistakes. Liam Lawson, who started in P15, collided with Carlos Sainz in Turn 1 of the first lap. The resultant damage to his front wing led him to pit on the third lap and subsequently retire a few laps later.
Hadjar, on the other hand, lost control of his car in Turn 6 of the same lap, finding himself off the racing line. He found himself to be a mute spectator as cars around him passed one by one. The Frenchman admitted after the race that the mistake made for a ‘painful’ first Mexico City GP.
Hadjar confesses to costly mistake at F1 Mexico City GP
Despite the mistake, Hadjar made a phenomenal recovery to find himself in P7 until the mid-point of the race. As he made a pit stop for a soft set of tyres on Lap 35, he rejoined the track among Alex Albon, Gabriel Bortoleto and Yuki Tsunoda.
The mid-table pack kept battling for P10 until the closing stages of the race when the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was deployed after Sainz’s retirement. All three drivers, on much quicker tyres, passed Hadjar on Lap 62 or later.
When asked about his experience driving at the Mexico GP for the first time, Hadjar summed up his feelings in one word — “Painful”.
The #6 driver, however, refused to blame the team for the strategy that left him with no set of fresh tyres for the final stint. He instead confessed to his Lap 1, Turn 6 mistake that put him on the back foot for pretty much the entirety of the race.
“No, I mean we didn’t have new tyres, so it made the difference with the other cars around me,” Hadjar said in the print media pen during his post-Mexico City GP chat.
When further probed if there were points to be had and the strategy let him down, he replied, “Strategy no, but if I didn’t make that mistake on lap one, yes.”
Hadjar had ‘fun’ reliving the F2 rivalry with Bortoleto at F1 Mexico City GP
Hadjar and Bortoleto shared a fierce rivalry throughout the 2024 F2 season. Both primed to win the championship, neither driver gave the other an inch on the race track. Bortoleto ultimately clinched the title by just 22.5 points.
While Hadjar admitted that failure to score points at the Mexico City GP was ‘frustrating’, he had fun rekindling his rivalry with Bortoleto. The 2024 F2 runner-up, however, was quick to point out the disadvantage he was running with.
“Yeah, I mean it was fun but not nice when you have tyres that are just dying and someone behind you has a big pace advantage. It was fun but I knew I was losing this battle anyway,” Hadjar admitted.
