Hadjar insists Verstappen would have won Singapore by more in a Ferrari

Isack Hadjar has publicly questioned whether Red Bull possessed the fastest car at the Singapore Grand Prix, telling reporters at the United States Grand Prix press conference in Austin that Max Verstappen’s 7.3-second victory over Charles Leclerc owed more to the Dutchman’s driving than to the machinery beneath him.

Verstappen arrived in Texas on the back of two consecutive victories — at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia and at Marina Bay — having claimed pole position for both the sprint race and the grand prix in Singapore. Yet his rookie team-mate was reluctant to crown Red Bull as the grid’s outright pace-setter.

“No, because I think the car is still very hard to drive,” Hadjar said. “In Malaysia, it was dominant, but I don’t think in Singapore it was the fastest car.”

When pressed on how Verstappen could win by such a margin in a supposedly inferior car, the French-Algerian driver was unequivocal: “That’s what I believe. I think if you put Max in the Ferrari, he would have won the race with more margin. So that’s my opinion.”

Hadjar pointed to a combination of marginal gains that he believes tipped the balance in Verstappen’s favour. “He qualified on pole by half a tenth. Ferrari didn’t have new tyres in the race, not on the soft, so this has an effect as well,” he explained. “He put all the chances on his side, he made the difference in Q3 and that was enough.”

Not everyone in the Austin press conference shared Hadjar’s scepticism. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who appeared alongside him, described Red Bull’s upgrade package introduced at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as “very strong” and said the team had become “the most consistently quick car” over recent rounds.

The contrasting assessments reflect the tightly contested nature of the 2025 constructors’ battle. With six rounds remaining, Red Bull sits fourth in the standings, seven points behind McLaren in third. Verstappen is also fourth in the drivers’ championship on 221 points, trailing Lewis Hamilton in third by eight points, while Hadjar is eighth on 97 points.