Hadjar hits boiling point after more Singapore trouble: 'I could have stayed in Paris'

Hadjar has endured a nightmare weekend at the Singapore Grand Prix, with repeated technical problems severely limiting his running at Marina Bay. The Frenchman was forced to retire just a few laps into the Sprint Race before another mechanical failure prevented him from setting a lap time in qualifying.

Having already seen his Sprint Race cut short, Hadjar was hoping for a better outcome in qualifying. Instead, a gearbox issue brought his session to a premature end, leaving the Red Bull driver furious after two separate technical failures in the space of a few hours.

Speaking to GPBlog after qualifying, the Frenchman explained that a gearbox problem was been responsible for his latest setback: “A gearbox issue; broke the full gear. I didn’t make a mistake. I went straight because I could not get the gears down. So it was all the same thing. So it was finished straight away.”

Asked whether the latest failure was unrelated to the issue that had forced him to retire from the Sprint Race, Hadjar suggested that the two problems were entirely different.

The succession of mechanical failures has understandably left Hadjar frustrated, with the Frenchman joking that he could have “stayed in Paris” rather than travelling to Singapore for a weekend in which he has barely been able to drive.

His disappointment was particularly evident when discussing the lack of opportunities to complete consecutive runs and make the most of fresh tyres: “It’s pissing me off because I just want to drive. I just want to get to it and go new tyre after new tyre, and now I don’t get to do that. I’m just really, really pissed off.”

Hadjar's frustration was not limited to his car's reliability. The frenchman also criticised the FIA's decision to direct him onto the weighbridge after he returned to the pit lane, despite the mechanical difficulties he was already experiencing.