Isack Hadjar appears to be facing the exact same problem as Sergio Perez did at Red Bull after the team’s Miami upgrades.
During the month-long break, Formula 1 teams were working around the clock to make improvements to their cars, with the aim of closing the gap to the dominant Mercedes.
In Red Bull’s case, they managed to bring several upgrades to Miami, which worked well as Max Verstappen looked competitive over the entire weekend, eventually finishing fifth in the Grand Prix.
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Is Isack Hadjar facing ‘traditional’ Max Verstappen problem at Red Bull?
Aside from the crash, it has been suggested that Hadjar is now facing a ‘traditional’ issue of being Verstappen’s teammate at Red Bull.
The issue in question is the fact that after Red Bull bring a host of upgrades to a race, Verstappen becomes more competitive while his teammate appears to drop further behind the Dutchman.
Speaking on The Race F1 podcast, Edd Straw asked fellow journalist Glenn Freeman: “Isack Hadjar, Glenn, has had a very Max Verstappen’s teammate’s traditional weekend, hasn’t he?”
To which Freeman replied: “Sadly, it fits the formula, doesn’t it? The car gets a bit better, Max goes with it and finds a new level of performance, and the teammate is left scrambling.
“That’s bad enough, and then to crash out in the way that Hadjar did, it’s the kind of lame way you crash out on this track on a computer game.
“You can’t negotiate the twisty, fiddly bit of the track, and you can never be precise there. I think we don’t need to stick the knife in; you see his reaction and how long his reaction went on for. While he’s getting out of the car, he’s still berating himself.”
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What did Sergio Perez say about Red Bull upgrades during his time as Max Verstappen’s teammate?
Back in 2022, when Perez was driving alongside Verstappen, the Mexican hinted at a similar problem.
Perez said in June 2022 that he felt the upgrades have made him less comfortable.
As reported by Autosport, Perez said: “I think the development of the car has been… I haven’t been as comfortable with it as I was in the beginning. Let’s put it that way.
“So, I think I’ve got some work to do to understand what’s going on.”
When asked to expand further, Perez simply replied: “Well, it was just going away from me in terms of how comfortable I was in the beginning.”
Looking ahead to the Canadian Grand Prix, Hadjar will need to bounce back with a solid performance to make sure Miami was just an off weekend.
Otherwise, the 21-year-old faces being in the same conversation as the likes of Perez, Yuki Tsunoda, Liam Lawson, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, who have all struggled to keep pace with Verstappen at Red Bull.
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