Isack Hadjar has called on Red Bull to redesign the clutch on its car, after a poor getaway from third on the grid wrecked his United States Grand Prix.
The Frenchman had recovered from what he called a “disaster” of a weekend to qualify on the second row at the Circuit of the Americas, just 0.036 seconds behind team-mate Max Verstappen. But he dropped to fifth on the opening lap, as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton both got their Ferraris past him, and he eventually finished a disappointing sixth.
McLaren’s Lando Norris also passed him on the way to fifth, leaving Hadjar well short of the podium fight he had been targeting since a solid Saturday performance, when he said having two Red Bulls near the front was “a bit of an advantage”.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after watching a replay of his start, Hadjar insisted he had done nothing wrong.
“You know, I do everything perfectly in terms of procedure, and then I just have clutch over delivery. These things are just out of my control. It’s starting to piss me off, you know.”
The problems didn’t stop there for the driver. Hadjar said he struggled to hear his engineers on the radio and rejoined the track on the wrong setting after his pitstop.
“And then I have poor radio coverage. I can’t hear what’s happening in the pits. I leave the pits with the wrong map.”
He said that cost him around a second a lap on the hard tyre.
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Brett Farmer / LAT Images via Getty Images
Red Bull has been caught out at the start before this season. Asked whether the team had explained the issue to him, Hadjar replied simply “No”, before making his demand.
“It needs a redesign. That’s it. The clutch, it needs a redesign because at the moment it’s too fragile. It’s not coping well with temperatures. Yeah, it’s a real struggle.”
This has been a really frustrating season for Hadjar, who missed the races at Zandvoort, Monza and Madrid after a wrist injury he received during training in the summer break, and arrived in Austin after a Singapore weekend in which he lamented “a failure in each session”.
Red Bull has already shown faith in him, extending his contract to the end of 2027 ahead of his return in Azerbaijan.
His team-mate fared better in Austin, but not by much. Verstappen finished third on a two-stop strategy, ending his run of two straight wins, and admitted the team’s overall pace was “not good enough” while crediting his podium finish on a well-timed VSC.
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