That podium finish slipped away right at the end, as RaceFans reports. Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar found himself unable to hold off his rivals during the closing stages of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, sliding down the order after a late Safety Car period.
Before that final neutralization, Hadjar sat comfortably in third place right behind his team mate and Andrea Kimi Antonelli. But lurking directly behind him were both Ferraris. Once the race went green again, the lack of defense was swift and brutal.
The whole race I was so slow. I don’t know what happened to my pace, but [it] really [was] one race to put in the bin.
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc quickly picked him off, leaving Hadjar to take the chequered flag in fifth place. Earlier in the grand prix, Hadjar had actually managed to successfully resist Hamilton for many laps while his rival was running on the medium tyre compound. Unfortunately, the dynamic shifted entirely once Hamilton bolted on soft tyres under the Safety Car.
“I had no battery, something like that,” Hadjar explained. “So there was no contest against the Ferraris in the straight.”
That late power loss wasn't even his only headache on the day. The driver admitted he was deeply unhappy with his pace throughout the entire afternoon, struggling to find any connection with the tarmac.
“I don’t know what happened in terms of the grip I had on the car,” he said. “The whole race I was so slow. I don’t know what happened to my pace, but [it] really [was] one race to put in the bin.”
Now, the focus shifts entirely to damage control and engineering autopsies. “We’ll fix the issue and understand why we are so bad today,” he added.
