Isack Hadjar Laments Lost Focus After Costly Miami Grand Prix Crash

Isack Hadjar has admitted that the sheer speed of his Red Bull machinery during the opening laps of the Miami Grand Prix ultimately lured him into a costly lapse in concentration, resulting in an early exit from the race.

The Cost of Over-Eagerness

Despite the setback, Hadjar made immediate and swift progress through the field. Driven by an eagerness to make amends for the team's Saturday blunder, he carved his way up the order. By lap five, he had just overtaken Arvid Lindblad to claim 15th position. However, that rapid ascent proved to be his undoing.

"The whole weekend I was very close and under control, but yeah, I made a mistake," Hadjar reflected. "I felt honestly awesome on those first few laps. It was very easy for me to overtake. Lindblad was the last car I overtook. I was flying from the pits within just three laps of racing, so I think we had a very good pace. So to me it was feeling fine."

The frustration of squandering such a potent package was evident. "It was a tough one. Just like breaking the car is pissing me off a lot. And also, it was a disappoint considering the car I had. So I just threw it all away," he added.

Recalling the suddenness of the incident, Hadjar noted: "I can't really remember [the crash] because it went by very quickly. It just felt like a big hit and I didn't see it coming. And the car was broken. I went to the other wall and couldn't stop it. It just shows how much you need to be focused and I wasn't."

Shared Blame and Looking Ahead

Rather than pointing fingers at the team for the qualifying exclusion that triggered his weekend's downward spiral, Hadjar accepted that the Miami Grand Prix was a collective nightmare. Much like Charles Leclerc taking full blame for his late spin, Hadjar showcased accountability.

"Both the team and I made mistakes this weekend. It's been a bit of a disaster from both our sides," Hadjar conceded. "We need to stick together and see what we can do the next weekend."

Despite the bitter end to his race, the underlying pace of the Red Bull provided a silver lining. "We're happy there's more performance in the car. It's not such a pain now to make it to Q3, which was the first few rounds. Let's just look at the positives and we come back in Canada and hopefully we do a strong one."

Adding to the sting of his early retirement was the performance of his team-mate, Max Verstappen, who managed to recover from a first-lap spin to secure fifth place—though that result remained subject to a post-race stewards' investigation. Watching the race unfold from the sidelines left Hadjar desperate to know what could have been.

"Honestly I'm itching to get back to it like right now," he admitted. "I wish I was driving. I wish I knew what I could have done. It was a good start, so having to wait three weeks [until the Canadian GP] is a bit rough."