Isack Hadjar apologises to Charles Leclerc as he admits Canadian GP penalties were fair

Isack Hadjar has apologised to Charles Leclerc and conceded his two penalties at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix were "fair".

Red Bull driver Hadjar scored his best result of the season, finishing in fifth place - just two positions behind team-mate Max Verstappen. 

However, the gap between the pair was over 71 seconds, after the Frenchman was handed a 10-second penalty for changing direction too many times when defending from, causing a startling near-miss on the back straight. Having served that penalty, he was then hit with the most severe sanction before a disqualification, a 10-second stop/go, for failing to slow under double waved yellows - a signal that indicates drivers should slow down and be prepared to stop.

“I don’t mind the penalties, I think they’re fair," said Hadjar when asked by Crash.net.

"It’s just; I don’t really understand where the pace went, because I really felt like I was struggling a lot out there. Saturday felt great in the car, and now it’s very hard to drive.”

He added: “In a way, I felt like I was back in FP1, to be honest. Not pleasant to drive, and I need to really dig deep, because I felt comfortable for the first few laps, and then they opened the gap and I could not match their pace, whereas on Saturday, I was easily there. So no clue.”

Asked if he was struggling solely with a lack of straight-line speed, similar to the problems faced by Verstappen in the sprint race, Hadjar said: “I wish that straight-line speed was the only issue, because it was the whole thing.”

Turning specifically to the incident with Leclerc, in which Hadjar made three separate moves across the track - two in defence, and one to take the racing line for the final chicane - the Red Bull driver held his hands up and apologised to his rival, citing 'confusion' as being behind the near-race-ending moment. 

“I was too harsh," he said. "If anything, it wasn’t even on purpose. I just got confused about where he was heading. So I didn’t mean to send him on the grass, obviously. He’s a very clean driver, so I just apologised because it was a bit stupid.”