Isack Hadjar felt that his P3 result in Qualifying for the 2026 season-opening Australian Grand Prix was the \u201cperfect start\u201d to his Red Bull career, despite admitting that he also saw the day as \u201cdamage limitation\u201d.<\/p>\n
After a crash<\/a> for team mate Max Verstappen<\/a> in Q1 left Hadjar<\/a> as the team\u2019s sole car for the remainder of Qualifying, the French driver appeared in good form throughout Saturday\u2019s session and ultimately proved the closest challenger to the Mercedes<\/a> pair, qualifying in third behind George Russell<\/a> and Kimi Antonelli<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reflecting on the outcome afterwards, Hadjar admitted that he was pleased to begin his new chapter with Red Bull<\/a> in a positive fashion, having made the step up to the squad following his rookie season with Racing Bulls<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very happy,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen I crossed the line I knew it was a good lap, maybe top three, which it was, so very happy with a smooth session. It\u2019s a perfect start to my Red Bull career.\u201d<\/p>\n However, when asked how the car was feeling out on track, Hadjar added: \u201cThat\u2019s the thing, it never feels good enough. But we know our weaknesses, and there\u2019s a lot of work to be done.<\/p>\n \u201cToday was more of a damage limitation, to be honest. It was a very good lap but I just feel like we need to improve at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re eight-tenths away from pole. Last year this would have been out of Q1.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of his expectations for Sunday\u2019s Grand Prix, Hadjar is hoping to follow up on the maiden rostrum that he achieved in last year\u2019s Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n Quizzed on whether he could catch the Mercedes cars off the line, the 21-year-old answered: \u201cThe only thing I can do is take a better start, but they\u2019re just too fast at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to keep my position \u2013 a second podium would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isack Hadjar felt that his P3 result in Qualifying for the 2026 season-opening Australian Grand Prix was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-520202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}