Isack Hadjar secured a stunning second row start for the F1 Dutch GP tomorrow afternoon. The Racing Bulls driver delivered when it mattered most to qualify P4.
It had been a complicated Friday for the Frenchman. He missed FP2 due to gremlins with his engine.
Isack Hadjar on stunning Q3 lap at F1 Dutch GP
Slower than Lawson in Q1 (P13) and Q2 (P9), the 2024 F2 runner-up turned it around in Q3. As 5 of the 6 drivers who finished behind him when slower than their Q2 benchmarks, Hadjar found 0.231s to beat George Russell to P4.
He explained his delight in the print media pen post-qualifying as he went all-in at the end of the lap to find more time.
“I’m very happy, finally I’m quite satisfied with what I did, so it was a good job from me.
“To be honest, it was the car being exactly like I wanted. It was responding really well, especially on that final lap.
“Probably we got a bit lucky with the wind gusts. I don’t know, we need to look at the data. Honestly, it’s a horrible feeling when you’re being hit by one. You can lose up to two tenths in a single corner. It’s very annoying, so you need to be a bit lucky.
“But I pulled an amazing lap and it stuck because the car was great. Surely, it’s the best lap I’ve had this year because it’s a very hard track, really demanding.
“And I put it all on the line, especially that final corner. I thought I did pretty well there to actually gain one more tenth. That was special.”
Starting alongside Verstappen and the possibility of going backwards
A Racing Bulls driver lining up alongside a Red Bull Racing car is very rare. In fact it’s only the third time in history it has happened since they have both been on the grid from 2006 onwards.
Hadjar does not seem too concerned about racing Verstappen, believing the Dutchman could get Norris at the start.
“He’s starting on the clean side of the grid, he has great starts usually. So actually I expect him to probably overtake a car ahead, if anything.
With George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton right behind him on the grid, Hadjar is fully aware he is likely to be attacked tomorrow. Over a race distance the Racing Bulls car does not have the pace of Mercedes or Ferrari. Sunday is likely to be no different.
Hadjar concedes he needs to be clever about managing things. His fights are likely to be with Sainz, Alonso, Antonelli and his teammate.
“To be fair, I don’t think it’s really difficult to overtake here. Looking at how long the straight is and the DRS zone starts very early.
“So if they have more pace, they will overtake. And that’s it, we need to accept it and be smart.”
Not overly concerned about missing race running
FP2 is the session where teams doing high fuel running. Isack Hadjar missed out yesterday due to the aforementioned problem with his car.
Nonetheless, he took huge encouragement from the brief long run Liam Lawson did. Due to lots of yellow and red flags, second practice was quite messy.
“I mean, I haven’t experienced it, obviously. We limited mileage yesterday, but looking at Liam, he was pretty fast yesterday. The car is healthy, you know, it’s fast on one lap, so it will be fast on many more laps.”
