The Formula 1 race weekend at the Marina Bay Circuit left Isack Hadjar in deep confusion as he struggled to tame an RB22 car that he described as completely undriveable. The sprint qualifying session at the Singapore Grand Prix turned into a nightmare for the young driver, after failing to find competitive pace and having to settle for a ninth-place start on the grid for the sprint race.
The issues were apparent right from the opening practice session. At that time, the French driver felt quite comfortable running on the hard tyre compound and even posted the fourth-fastest time. However, the situation reversed drastically when the team switched to the medium tyres, where he suddenly dropped and lagged seven tenths of a second behind his dominantly performing teammate.
The performance gap widened further during SQ1 and SQ2 sessions which mandated the use of medium tyres. The time deficit to his teammate reached 0.705 seconds in the first session, before narrowing to 0.246 seconds in the next phase. Technical issues also worsened his situation when he encountered engine trouble during his final run on the Marina Bay street circuit.
Entering the SQ3 session, all drivers were required to use soft tyres for the first time of the weekend according to regulations. During that opportunity, his lap time fell significantly behind the benchmark time set by Max Verstappen, before his lap time was ultimately deleted due to a track-limit infringement.
Responding to his poor performance, the key driver for Red Bull Racing could not hide his utter confusion in front of the media. He felt that what seemed like a very positive start to the day turned drastically into a very disappointing performance in the grid-deciding session.
"I don't know," Isack Hadjar said, expressing his frustration. "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."
He added that he was constantly fighting against uncooperative handling characteristics. "I never got to have a good lap, really. 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."
When asked about the difference in feel when using the soft tyre compound, he admitted that the tyre provided much better grip than the medium compound. Nonetheless, that advantage made no significant difference since rival drivers were using the exact same tyre specifications on track.
"No, I don't know. 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, sog I don't know. I just don't feel like it's drivable right now," he concluded.
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