Isack Hadjar fumes amid Singapore GP nightmare: “Everything is breaking apart”

Red Bull Formula 1 driver Isack Hadjar was left furious after his troubled Singapore Grand Prix weekend continued in qualifying. 

Hadjar’s weekend in Singapore has been ruined by Red Bull’s poor reliability so far, with the Frenchman forced to retire from the sprint race with a mechanical failure, less than a week after a battery issue cost him a potential podium in Malaysia. 

The 21-year-old acknowledged his gratitude to his mechanics for their work to fix his car in time for qualifying, but Hadjar’s joy was short-lived. Hadjar ground to halt before he could even set a timed lap in Q1.

Hadjar was able to get going again and return to the pits, only to encounter a gearbox failure when he re-emerged on track minutes later, compounding a nightmare Saturday. 

"No, I want to drive. Honestly, I don't care about P22. I just want to get out there and do my thing. Get to it," Hadjar told Sky Sports F1 when asked if knowing the issue wasn’t his fault made the result easier to stomach. 

"I have plenty of soft tyres in the garage right now that are not going to be used. And that's what pisses me off the most right now. I just want to be there and fight with the other guys.”

Already faced with a back-of-the-grid start and a long Sunday ahead with overtaking notoriously difficult at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Hadjar wants to take a completely fresh pool of engine components. 

“We need stuff that is new," he insisted. ”And tomorrow is an opportunity, obviously, because everything is breaking apart this weekend. Yeah, we need a fresh restart.”

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies did not confirm whether his side would indeed elect to introduce a fresh set of power unit elements into Hadjar’s pool, but he offered an apology to his driver. 

“I would like to apologise to Isack, as he has had very limited running opportunities this weekend,” Mekies said. 

"The crew in the garage did a truly incredible job to get the car ready for qualifying, after the issue in the sprint and in SQ yesterday, but unfortunately, we then encountered a gearbox problem which we are still investigating. 

"Starting from the back will make tomorrow difficult, but he has shown many times this season that he approaches every challenge in the right way and we will fight together to come back through the field."

Rubbing further salt into the wounds for Hadjar was the fact his team-mate Max Verstappen put his Red Bull on pole.