Hadjar brands race ‘a disaster’ after Hamilton pounces on Red Bull problem

Hadjar started eighth after an engine change and five-place grid penalty, and then Sunday his day started badly when he went through the gravel on the formation lap, on a wet track.

Once the race got going, he made good use of the intermediates. He passed Liam Lawson for fourth on lap six and held that position from then on, even with Lewis Hamilton putting him under pressure late in the race.

George Russell retired on lap 50, which moved Hadjar up to third. He could not hold off the Ferraris in the four-lap sprint after the last Safety Car. He finished fifth, nearly four seconds behind Hamilton.

Hadjar had kept Hamilton behind for many laps while the Ferrari was on mediums. Once Hamilton switched to softs under the Safety Car, Hadjar could not stop him. Hamilton got past at Turn 1 on lap 53 for his first podium since Silverstone, and Charles Leclerc followed him through.

Hadjar said the power unit was not to blame. "Power unit was fine, it's just the first two laps of the restart, I don't know why we were so down on battery," he said. He added that the problem later fixed itself and his pace came back, and that without it he would have kept third.

Battery problems were not his only complaint. Hadjar lost 0.881s a lap to Verstappen on average over the 30 green-flag laps. Asked whether this was the degradation problem the RB22 has sometimes shown, he pointed to the chassis.

He said he had no grip even behind the Safety Car. "It felt like I was always on the same tyres. I came back on the run-one compound, so… It's a joke," he added. He called Sepang "really one race to put in the bin."

It was the team's best day of the season, for Verstappen, Red Bull and Ford, who took their first win of the 2026 season. Hadjar was not in the mood to celebrate.