Hadjar rues ‘undriveable’ Red Bull after set-up changes lead to Austin struggles

Isack Hadjar described his second practice session in Austin as “a disaster” and his Red Bull RB22 as “undriveable” after struggling to set a representative lap time on the soft tyre.

Hadjar finished the session in P9 and a huge 0.931s behind team mate Max Verstappen, who took third spot behind Charles Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli.

Hadjar struggled particularly with his tyres after set-up changes were made between the sessions, with the fronts overheating through the high-speed corners early in the lap and leaving him short of grip thereafter.

“We had an okay FP1, and then in FP2 I felt okay as well on the medium, even though we changed the car,” he said. “And the soft, honestly, the car was completely gone for me. So yeah, very difficult to drive.

“I need to turn things around tomorrow, sit down and see what we can do, because the car made a massive step down. We need to bring it back at least to the level it was this morning.”

Hadjar added: “It's just a disaster. After Sector 1, basically, where I made most of my lap time, from Sector 1 to the end of the lap, I was slower than on the medium.

“It was just undriveable, and I was losing the front end massively. So we need to have a look, because that's not normal, why there's so much deg on one lap.”

Verstappen, meanwhile, did not encounter the same level of difficulty after a power steering change following an issue in FP1. While Hadjar confirmed that there were some set-up differences between the cars, he remained hopeful that changes for Saturday will help.

“Yeah, if they managed to do it on the other side [of the garage],” the Frenchman said. “It's like the temperatures are going sky high, and we're going at the same speed.

“So we need to tweak something on the car balance, because we're running different stuff. You need to try. But to have such a bad feeling, I'm a bit surprised, to be honest.”

Red Bull Technical Director Pierre Wache confirmed the team had gone in the wrong direction with Hadjar’s car, while stressing that its set-up was not drastically different from Verstappen’s.

“Well, I think it's an overall set-up direction that we have to undo, between P1 and P2, and it's what we are working on this evening,” Wache said. “They are not far away. With this type of layout, you have the full high-speed corner during the Sector 1, after Turn 1, and I think if you overcook the tyre there, after it's more or less finished for the lap.”

Wache indicated that COTA’s bumps were proving challenging for the RB22.

“As expected it's jumping a lot,” he said. “The problem with this type of setup we are using, that is quite not as stiff as last year but not so far, is that the car is not very compliant on these bumps here.”

Wache concluded: “It's clearly the low speed performance where we are focused on at the moment – low speed is the key for us.”