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Isack Hadjar has described his narrowing Sprint Qualifying gap to Max Verstappen at the Canadian Grand Prix as "reassuring", drawing encouragement from a top-eight result that marked his strongest qualifying performance relative to his team-mate so far this season.
The two Red Bull drivers will share the fourth row on the Sprint grid in Montreal, with Verstappen edging Hadjar by just 0.101 seconds — the smallest margin between the pair across all Sprint Qualifying sessions to date. The contrast with earlier rounds is stark: Verstappen had been 0.469s clear in China and a dominant 0.961s ahead in Miami, making the closing gap in Canada a meaningful data point in Hadjar's development arc.
For context on how the broader Sprint Qualifying picture unfolded at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, George Russell claimed Sprint pole as Mercedes delivered an impressive rebound at the head of the field.
Hadjar acknowledged that his Friday had been far from straightforward. A slow start in FP1 left him without a representative lap time on the soft compound, forcing him to build confidence and references incrementally across the session.
"I had a slow build-up — in FP1, I didn't even get a time on the soft," the Frenchman explained. "I had poor references, so I was building up slowly, and finally had a good feeling in SQ3 on the soft, and I'm happy with the final lap."
The fact that he was able to translate that gradual improvement into a competitive final run in the decisive segment of Sprint Qualifying speaks to his composure under pressure — and hints at a driver who is learning to extract more from a difficult car.
Despite the positive takeaway on the intra-team gap, Hadjar was candid about the wider picture at Red Bull. Both he and Verstappen are struggling with significant bouncing in the RB22, a problem compounded by the conditions at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
"Also, the gap to my team-mate is closer than Miami, so that is reassuring, but yeah, at the moment, we both don't have a good feeling in the car," Hadjar said. "We are struggling massively with the bouncing, and the track state is not good, and this is why we are losing a lot of time. Even if the grip is there, we can't use it."
The admission underlines that Red Bull's difficulties are not simply a matter of driver adaptation — the car itself is preventing both men from capitalising on available grip. It is a telling remark that frames the gap to the front runners as a mechanical issue, not merely a performance one.
Hadjar's relationship with Verstappen has been a point of focus throughout the early part of the season. The Frenchman was among those who reacted to Verstappen's Nürburgring 24 Hours debut, reflecting the respect between the two team-mates beyond the circuit. On track, closing the gap by nearly a full second across three Sprint Qualifying rounds is, whatever the broader context, a trajectory that points firmly in the right direction.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.