Hadjar frustrated by poor Q3 lap despite closing to 0.028s of Verstappen in Montreal

Isack Hadjar delivered his strongest qualifying result since the Melbourne season opener at the Canadian Grand Prix, landing seventh on the grid just 0.028 seconds behind Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen — yet the French rookie left Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve deeply dissatisfied with his own performance.

The frustration stemmed from what had come earlier in the session. Hadjar had set the fastest lap in Q2, a remarkable 0.504 seconds quicker than a struggling Verstappen, raising expectations of a genuine challenge for the front rows. When Q3 arrived, however, he improved by only 0.040 seconds on his Q2 time, leaving a result he felt should have been considerably better.

“I had a shitty lap,” Hadjar told Canal+. “I’m very upset, because I did a very good job in Q1 and Q2, and then I didn’t do a good Q3. I’m a bit gutted, because we really had a good car and it was a good opportunity. And I ended up seventh. The team did a great job, we found what was wrong. It’s good, but then you need to put everything together, and I didn’t.”

Hadjar acknowledged he “overdrove a bit” in Q3, though he noted that seventh place still represented his smallest deficit to pole position — just 0.357 seconds — in his Formula 1 career to date. “That’s why I’m unhappy,” he said. “We did a good job. Then, we know that we’re quite good on tracks like this, Monaco should be alright too, but we have big problems to fix.”

Speaking separately to written media, Hadjar struck a more measured tone, particularly in contrast to a difficult weekend in Miami. “I feel a lot better in the car,” he said. “I’m not getting destroyed in every corner, and it feels more normal, more like the first three rounds. Miami, for me, in the bin, and now it’s back to more normal stuff. Happy with the car, happy with the set-up changes we did from yesterday to qualifying. We got a lot closer to pole position, so we’re doing good.”

The result marks a notable step forward for the 20-year-old, who had not matched this level of intra-team competitiveness against Verstappen since the Japanese Grand Prix earlier in the season. Whether he can convert the improved pace into points on race day in Montreal remains to be seen.