That said, a messy second practice session left Isack Hadjar calling his Red Bull RB22 "undriveable" after setup adjustments backfired badly at the United States Grand Prix. The Frenchman wrapped up the run down in P9, finishing a massive 0.931s behind team mate Max Verstappen.
Now, Verstappen managed to claim third spot behind Charles Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli after the team sorted out a power steering issue from the morning. But for Hadjar, the afternoon quickly turned into a disaster once he bolted on the soft tyre. The front tyres overheated rapidly through the high-speed corners early in the lap, robbing the machine of any remaining grip.
"We had an okay FP1, and then in FP2 I felt okay as well on the medium, even though we changed the car," he explained. "And the soft, honestly, the car was completely gone for me. So yeah, very difficult to drive."
The drop-off in performance was so extreme that Hadjar found himself setting slower lap times on the soft compound than he had managed on the medium after completing the first sector. The front end was washing out massively, leaving the driver baffled by the sudden high tire degradation on a single flying lap.
Red Bull Technical Director Pierre Wache confirmed that the squad simply took the wrong path with the setup changes between sessions. Wache noted that while the two cars were not drastically different, the chosen direction for Hadjar overcooked the front tires through the demanding high-speed sequence following Turn 1, effectively killing the lap.
Compounding the handling troubles, the RB22 was also fighting the bumps around the circuit. Wache pointed out that the current setup is not very compliant over the bumps, making low-speed performance the primary area the team must focus on to rescue the weekend.
Thankfully, with work underway to undo the misguided changes, Hadjar remains hopeful of returning the machine to its morning baseline before Saturday's running.
