Battery failure costs Hadjar a Bahrain GP podium as Hamilton's Ferrari sweeps past

Isack Hadjar was running third at the Bahrain Grand Prix when a battery failure robbed him of the power to defend, allowing Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to sweep past in the closing laps and relegate the Red Bull rookie to fifth place.

Hadjar had done everything right to that point. He qualified ahead of both Mercedes cars, started on the better intermediate tyre, and capitalised on a virtual safety car period triggered by Alex Albon’s gearbox failure at Turn 2. When George Russell subsequently suffered a power unit problem, Hadjar was promoted to third — a podium seemingly secured.

But the restart unravelled quickly. “[Hamilton] was 15 seconds behind me and then in a couple of laps he was behind me,” Hadjar said. “So when the whole weekend I was really faster… We need to fix the issue back in Singapore and do better.”

The Frenchman was blunt about the scale of the drop-off. “No pace,” he said when asked why he appeared dissatisfied with his ten-point haul. “Something was wrong. Even compared to Mercedes, where the whole weekend we were quicker — and now in the race we’re absolutely nowhere. Just the last couple of laps, I don’t know how we ended having no battery. So in the straights I can’t defend against the Ferraris. We lose the position on something so stupid.”

Hadjar added that the problem appeared to stabilise after the initial restart chaos, suggesting the issue was transient rather than terminal. “It’s just the first two laps of the restart, I don’t know why we were so down on the battery. Then it stabilised itself and then I was fast again. Otherwise I would have kept third.”

He also pointed to tyre feel as a compounding factor. “Even behind the safety car I was feeling that I had no grip and it was going to be a tough restart for me. It felt like I was always on the same tyres. I came back on the wrong compound.”

Hadjar had started the race eighth after a five-place grid penalty, making his climb to a near-podium all the more impressive — and the late collapse all the more frustrating. Red Bull will need to identify and resolve the battery management issue before the Singapore Grand Prix if Hadjar is to convert his pace into the results his weekend form has been promising.