Hadjar baffled by 'undriveable' Red Bull after qualifying ninth for Singapore Sprint

Isack Hadjar was left searching for answers after a troubled sprint qualifying session at the Singapore Grand Prix left him ninth on the grid and nearly nine tenths of a second adrift of team-mate Max Verstappen.

The Frenchman had shown early promise in the sole free practice session, going fourth-fastest on hard tyres — quicker than Verstappen at that stage — but the picture changed sharply once the field switched to medium compound rubber. Hadjar was 0.705 seconds behind Verstappen in SQ1 and 0.246s back in SQ2, with both segments run on the yellow-walled mediums that he had struggled to get to grips with.

On soft tyres in SQ3, Hadjar lapped in 1m32.048s, only to lose that time to a track-limits infringement regardless. Verstappen’s benchmark stood at 0.892s faster.

“I don’t know,” Hadjar said after the session. “It’s just, what seemed like a good start of the day turned into a very poor performance. I felt very comfortable straight away in FP1, but on the hard compound, and that was it, really. I never got to have a good lap. I’m just fighting with the car. I had engine issues on the last run. I was just struggling. I don’t know, it’s just weird.”

Hadjar also reported that the RB22 was bottoming out excessively during free practice, a concern that appeared to compound as the session progressed onto compounds that exposed the car’s handling issues more acutely.

Asked whether the soft tyre had at least felt like an improvement, Hadjar acknowledged the extra grip but said it made little difference in context. “The soft definitely feels like a huge step to the medium compound. It was a lot more grip, but it didn’t really matter anyway — all the other guys are on the soft as well. I just don’t feel like it’s drivable right now.”

Verstappen took pole for the sprint but was placed under investigation for an alleged overtaking move under yellow flags, adding a layer of uncertainty to the front of the grid ahead of the short-format race.