Isack Hadjar has changed his mind about sprint weekends in Formula 1, after his Singapore Grand Prix turned into an ordeal.
The Red Bull racer’s weekend at the Marina Bay Street Circuit started poorly as he complained that his Red Bull bottomed too much – especially in braking zones – in Free Practice 1, where he was seven tenths slower than team-mate Max Verstappen.
Sprint qualifying didn’t go much better, even though Hadjar reached SQ3, as he felt he “never got to have a good lap” and was “just fighting with the car”.
But the French sophomore didn’t get much of a chance to improve his car’s set-up. He reported engine issues on his SQ3 run, had a power unit failure in the sprint race, suffered a ‘broken fourth gear’ in the main qualifying session and brought up further powertrain trouble after struggling to 10th in the full-distance race.
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“Just a disaster” – How Isack Hadjar’s nightmare Singapore F1 weekend unfoldedOf course, Hadjar’s hardship was largely down to unreliability rather than the sprint format, but he still felt the single practice session – as opposed to three on a regular weekend – prevented him from remedying his RB22’s set-up woes.
“That's the problem with these weekends where you don't get to work on the car,” the 22-year-old lamented after qualifying in Singapore. “Like, it's impossible. You just kind of need to get lucky. There's no work.
“I guess it's not entertaining for people to watch us do a lot of tests, but it's important to us, and now... The car was handling terribly. I was excited for today to see what the change brought, I was excited to see what I could do with the engine that was working fine, and I don't get to do it. It's hard to learn anything on weekends like that.”
Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
Asked if the format added spice to the weekend for speed of preparation and jeopardy, Hadjar replied: “Maybe it rewards the people that don't really work really well. Maybe.
“I just don't like it. I used to, last year. But actually, when you grow up a bit, you have a tough team-mate next to you, you get the work going and… I don't like the sprint anymore.”
Unfortunately for Hadjar, the number of sprint weekends will increase from six this season to 10 in 2027.
“I don't know who makes these decisions,” he rued. “Next year, we have a sprint race in Monaco. How in the world do you think that's going to happen? What do you think is going to happen? Do you think it's going to be overtakes?”
“No,” a journalist replied. “So why are we doing it?” Hadjar continued. “It's just very disappointing, and there are more and more of them.”