SINGAPORE – For Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, the Singapore Grand Prix weekend has spiraled from a high-stakes challenge into an absolute nightmare. After a disastrous Saturday at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, the French-Algerian driver did not mince words, openly admitting he is “pissed off” following a series of mechanical failures that have effectively ruined his weekend.
The trouble began during the Sprint race earlier in the day. As the field navigated the tight confines of the street circuit behind a safety car—deployed following a lap-one crash involving Mercedes’ George Russell—Hadjar’s RB22 suffered a catastrophic power unit failure. He was forced to pull his car off the circuit, ending his sprint before it could truly begin.
In a desperate bid to salvage the day, the Red Bull mechanics worked frantically during the interval to swap out power unit components from the pool. Hadjar initially expressed gratitude to his crew as he managed to make it onto the track for qualifying. However, the reprieve was short-lived.
Within minutes of the session starting, Hadjar was forced to stop on track for a second time. While he miraculously managed to get the car moving again and limp back to the garage, the relief was fleeting. A terminal gearbox problem soon emerged, forcing him to abandon his qualifying efforts entirely.
When asked by Sky Sports F1 if he could take comfort in the fact that the gearbox failure was outside of his control, Hadjar was visibly frustrated.
“No, I want to drive,” he stated flatly. “Honestly, I don’t care about P22. I just want to get out there and do my thing. I have plenty of soft tyres in the garage right now that aren’t going to be used, and that’s what pisses me off the most right now. I just want to be there fighting with the other guys.”
With Marina Bay being notoriously difficult for overtaking, Hadjar’s starting position at the back of the grid effectively spells doom for his points tally. In an effort to reset for Sunday, the team is now expected to fit an entirely fresh power unit. While this change will trigger a penalty that forces him to start from the pit lane, Hadjar believes it is the only logical path forward.
“We need new stuff, and tomorrow is an opportunity, obviously, because everything’s breaking apart this weekend,” Hadjar said, eyeing a clean slate for the race. “So, yeah, we need a fresh restart.”
For a driver eager to prove his worth on the grid, Sunday’s race will now be less about championship contention and more about pure damage limitation in a weekend that has seen everything but success for the Red Bull youngster.
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