Isack Hadjar hit by gearbox failure in Singapore qualifying
NXTbets Pro | Published On: October 10, 2026
Gearbox failure
Isack Hadjar left Singapore qualifying frustrated and unclassified after a gearbox failure stopped him from setting a representative lap, a setback that will send him to the back of the grid for Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix. Hadjar said the car felt good in Sector 1 before the gearbox broke at Turn 8, and he said he could not get the gears down before he had to limp the car back to the garage. Red Bull had already switched him to a previous power unit before qualifying, a move that underscored how much trouble the weekend had already caused. Hadjar did not hide his reaction after the latest problem halted his run. He said he was “really frustrated.” The failure left him with no measured time that could keep him in the fight for a better starting spot, leaving the French driver headed to the rear of the field before the race even starts.
Singapore setbacks
The gearbox issue was only the latest mechanical problem in a Singapore weekend that had already gone wrong in several places for Hadjar. He had to retire from the Sprint after three laps because of an engine problem, and that came after his weekend had already been affected by a battery-related setback in Malaysia. Hadjar also finished ninth in Sprint Qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix after a lap was deleted for exceeding track limits, a result that reflected a session full of interruptions rather than a clean pace run. He said he was fighting the car throughout Sprint Qualifying and had engine issues on his final run, which left him chasing performance instead of building on it. The trouble began even earlier in the weekend. Hadjar said he felt comfortable early in FP1 on the hard tire, but the picture changed quickly once he moved to the medium and soft tires. At that point, he said the car did not feel driveable at Marina Bay as his pace fell away, and he never managed to stitch together a good lap. That sequence of problems left him with no steady reference point from practice to Sprint Qualifying to qualifying, only a weekend shaped by repeated failures and a car that never settled into a rhythm.
Mekies apology
Laurent Mekies apologized to Hadjar after the qualifying setback and said the team’s power unit issue in the Sprint and the gearbox problem in qualifying denied the driver a chance to show his pace. That view matched the broader picture from the weekend, where Hadjar’s best moments kept getting erased by mechanical trouble or lost time. He described the sequence as “bad momentum,” a phrase that fit the way the problems kept stacking up from session to session. He also criticized the FIA for calling him to the weighbridge while he was still struggling to bring the car back. That added another layer to an already difficult day, because the driver had to nurse the car home while dealing with the aftermath of the gearbox failure, then turn immediately to the administrative side of the session. The frustration was easy to trace. Hadjar had enough speed early in the weekend to keep trying for more, but each stage brought a new setback, from the deleted lap in Sprint Qualifying to the engine issue in the Sprint to the gearbox failure in qualifying. Mekies’ apology captured the team’s view of the weekend, while Hadjar’s comments showed how little margin remained after the car and its components kept closing the door on him.
