Isack Hadjar<\/a> gave a little more insight later on in Belgium, suggesting that on track the impact was not significant.<\/p>\n\u201cVisually it’s obviously a big change, but in the car it’s not,\u201d explained the Frenchman. \u201cIt’s less than you might think. It’s hard even for us to measure the loss to going back to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we still reckon to have similar competitiveness to last weekend, for example, even though it’s definitely a less impressive rear wing. But we’re making sure the other one comes back to us as soon as we can, and in a safer way as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
An obvious question is why only Verstappen suffered over those two weekends in Silverstone and Austria but Hadjar stressed it could easily have been his car.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I got quite lucky for two rounds in a row,\u201d he said. \u201cSo yeah, this one was really down to luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could have happened to neither of us, and it could have happened four times to the both of us. So on this one, he took it for me, unfortunately. And to be honest, his problem is my problem as well, and we need to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the rear wing may be a focal point this weekend, Verstappen\u2019s frustrated Silverstone weekend highlighted that Red Bull also have other issues to address.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the engine side definitely we’ve been probably a bit less competitive in Silverstone, but roughly decent,\u201d said Hadjar. \u201cBut for me, it’s more understanding this new package. Already I said in Red Bull Ring where, while competitive, I didn’t feel good in the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think in Silverstone we were less competitive. But at the same time, it’s the second race with the updates. It was a huge package, and it seems like post races we understood a lot of things that we didn’t get during the weekend, and if we had to come back now, we would obviously find more pace. But it is what it is. We move on, and we apply it for this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to expand on the issues, he said: \u201cIn Red Bull Ring, it felt terrible on the brakes, terrible overheating the tyres. Silverstone, I felt a lot better, but competitiveness, if anything, was worse. And then there’s other issues I can’t really talk about on the car, and that explains the lack of performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the data against competitors; it’s not one axle where it’s clear we’re lacking. We’re a bit slow everywhere and at least it’s good news in a way. The car is healthy, but it’s just a tiny bit slower everywhere than our competitors, and we know what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another specific area of focus at Red Bull has been starts, which have caught the drivers out on a regular basis in 2026. Hadjar is hopeful that Spa will be better after some recent homework.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’ve been putting a lot of pressure on trying to reassess the issues,\u201d said Hadjar. \u201cWe’ve had a bit of testing recently in Silverstone after the race, and we’ve had some good opportunity to try things, which we did, and we learned as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’re on a way better page than in Silverstone, but we’re still chasing to be doing what Ferrari is doing, for example, they are very consistent. I think you’ve got Williams as well [who] are very good, and Racing Bulls are doing a great job too. So we should as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen’s race-ending spin in the British Grand Prix came just a week after his crash in Q3…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-805988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}