Isack Hadjar Secures Fifth Position in Monaco GP Qualifying

Reliable National News

Red Bull Racing's young driver, Isack Hadjar, successfully secured the fifth starting position in the Monaco GP qualifying session, despite experiencing a severe crash in the first free practice session.

Having achieved this result, Hadjar found himself three positions behind his teammate, Max Verstappen, who secured the second position. According to reports from crash.net and formula1.com, the French driver was able to temporarily secure the third position in Q2 before his performance declined in the crucial Q3 session.

Briefly before the incident, Hadjar lost control of his RB22 at the second chicane of the swimming pool during FP1 on Friday. His car crashed into the barriers, causing significant damage to the front wing and losing one wheel, forcing the Red Bull mechanics to perform an emergency repair before the FP2 session.

Hadjar acknowledged that the accident initially affected his level of confidence when he returned to the Monte Carlo circuit.

"It went quite well," Hadjar reflected on the incidents to formula1.com.

"I thought I was having a good lap and building my confidence, and when I gained that confidence, I experienced that moment," Hadjar stated.

"It really shocked me – I didn't expect to lose control here. Apart from that, it's not a common crash you see here, losing the back end like that, so I was surprised.

"It was definitely challenging," Hadjar added.

Hadjar continued, "I tried to rebuild my confidence [in FP2]. I didn't take any risks and simply explored a bit more each lap. It took about a minute for me to get used to it, and there's still a lot to find, but I felt all right by the end of it, so let's see what we can prepare tonight for tomorrow," Hadjar stated following his sixth-place finish in FP2.

"Of course, I'd love to compete with some of the Mercedes drivers," Hadjar said.

"I think the top three are very strong and in a great rhythm, so we need a strong FP3 to make everything run smoothly and close the gap," Hadjar said.

"Fingers crossed we can maximize it and make it to qualifying and further improve," Hadjar concluded.

After completing the qualifying sessions on Saturday, Hadjar expressed a mix of emotions regarding the final outcome due to the lack of track time.

"It's a mixed feeling," Hadjar told crash.net.

"I think it was a great comeback, but at the same time, qualifying was just too chaotic, and we made too many mistakes," Hadjar stated.

"It's not the best way to build up our pace ahead of Q3, and I missed out on some track time," Hadjar said.

"In Q3 [during the first lap] we felt a bad feeling with the car, and I was slower than in Q2, so you enter Q3 [the last lap] with this as your last reference, and that's not the right way to approach it," Hadjar said.

"I was five tenths off the pace of the cars ahead, so to make a big step is extremely, extremely demanding," Hadjar said.

"Traffic and tires, yeah, we started with the wrong step," Hadjar said regarding the issues in Q1.

"I was a second behind Max, then in Q2, you do a good warm-up, and then you're back in the fight," Hadjar said.

"I didn't do enough laps in the same car, and it ultimately cost me dearly," Hadjar said.

"I mean, I think I missed more than half the session.

"FP2, my car was repaired, and my confidence needed to be rebuilt, and that was a disastrous day," Hadjar said about the impact of the FP1 crash.

"However, I maximized FP3 today, and honestly, the damage limitation, so I did it well," Hadjar said.

"Yes, I mean, especially with the performance disparity we've seen this year, we can see some efforts at Turn 1. Fingers crossed, we'll be in the fight," Hadjar said regarding his chances in the main race.