Hadjar rebounds to qualify third behind Verstappen in Austin
NXTbets Pro | Published On: October 25, 2026
Hadjar struggles in practice
Isack Hadjar hit a rough patch in second practice at the United States Grand Prix in Austin. He called the session “a disaster” after setup changes left his Red Bull RB22 “completely gone” and “undriveable” on soft tires. The balance was better on medium tires in first practice and in the early part of FP2, but the picture changed fast once the soft compound went on. Front tire overheating and heavy degradation cut into his pace, and Hadjar said the soft tire created severe understeer that made the car slower than it had been on the mediums. He finished FP2 in ninth place, 0.931 seconds behind teammate Max Verstappen. He also spent part of the morning fighting repeated track-limit violations that erased lap times and kept him from putting together a clean lap on soft tires. That left him with a long list of problems to sort out before qualifying and Sunday’s race.
Red Bull works overnight
Red Bull saw the same problem from the garage. Pierre Wache said the team went in the wrong direction with Hadjar’s setup, and he pointed to the bumps at Circuit of the Americas and the car’s low-speed performance as the main trouble spots for the RB22. The issue went beyond a simple tweak, too. Wache said rebalancing the car was harder than expected, especially on Hadjar’s side of the garage. That made the overnight work more important, because the team had to get the car back into a better window before qualifying and before parc fermé conditions began to lock everything down. Hadjar took the same view after practice, saying he would work with the team through the night to recover the car’s balance for Saturday. The plan was straightforward, review the balance, make the car easier to drive and get back to the level it had shown on the medium tire. For a driver who had already felt the RB22 swing from manageable to unruly in one session, the response had to be immediate and precise. The team needed the fixes before qualifying if Hadjar was going to improve his position for the weekend.
Hadjar rebounds in qualifying
The adjustment worked. Hadjar turned the practice setback into a much stronger qualifying run and recovered to take third on the grid for Sunday’s race, with Verstappen the only driver ahead of him. Red Bull’s setup changes helped improve the car in qualifying, and Hadjar said the RB22 “came alive” in Q3 after the team found a better balance. That change gave him the chance to fight at the front of the session after he had spent practice describing the car as a major problem on soft tires. He still had to manage the conditions, and he said a strong tailwind hurt his first Q3 attempt. Even so, the overall picture changed sharply from the earlier practice struggle. The car that had felt slow, unstable and difficult to manage found pace when it mattered most, and Hadjar made the jump from a troubled FP2 to a front-row-adjacent qualifying result. The turnaround gave Red Bull something tangible after a difficult start, and it put Hadjar in position for Sunday’s race from a much better starting spot than practice suggested.
