Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Isack Hadjar kept third place in the Monaco Grand Prix, securing his first podium for Red Bull after driving through severe technical trouble and then coming through a post-race FIA investigation with no further action.
Hadjar had crossed the line fourth, but penalties for George Russell and Pierre Gasly lifted him onto the podium. That result was only made official after stewards reviewed work carried out on Red Bull’s car No. 6 during the race suspension and decided not to pursue the matter further.
The podium came at the end of a race Hadjar said had started going wrong very early. The Red Bull driver said he began suffering drivability problems around lap 12, leaving the car “just undriveable” on a circuit where losing use of first or second gear is especially punishing. He later also suffered a loss of power, and said even the final restart was “very complicated.”
In the end, Hadjar said the result was satisfying precisely because of how close the race came to unraveling. Isack Hadjar, Red Bull driver, said he had “so many issues in the car that at one point I really thought this weekend was going to end outside the points.” He added that the team still needs to understand the problems, “but I kept pushing and here we are. I’m happy.”
He described the opening laps as manageable before the problems took over. Hadjar said the car became increasingly difficult to control, with major drivability issues making it a challenge to complete the race distance at Monaco. He also said a power drop on the restart cost him positions, forcing him to push through the corners just to stay within range of cars carrying penalties ahead.
That made the result a sharp turnaround from a weekend he felt had begun “in the worst way possible.” Hadjar crashed heavily in FP1 at the Swimming Pool after the rear snapped, damaging the car and costing him more than half a session. Although Red Bull got him back out for FP2, he said he never really recovered his rhythm on Friday and had “no feeling with the car,” leaving his confidence at its lowest point.
Hadjar said he finally made a step in FP3 and rebuilt enough trust to become competitive again in qualifying, giving himself a chance for Sunday. He had started fifth on the grid after admitting qualifying was messy and that he had left time on the table, but Monaco still offered him the track position to capitalize when the race turned chaotic.
The result matters beyond one difficult afternoon. It is Hadjar’s first podium since joining Red Bull and a reward for salvaging a weekend that had looked compromised from the opening practice crash. It also reinforced his view that Red Bull has improved in recent races, with Hadjar saying the team has progressed since Miami and believes it can keep fighting Ferrari even if Monaco was not the clearest measure of that form.