Hadjar knocks Red Bull car

Isack Hadjar did the one thing Formula One drivers usually avoid in public: he said the Red Bull car was “hard to drive” in Japan after qualifying eighth at Suzuka on March 28, 2026, and he said the team’s real target was figuring out how to make it faster, not just scraping a point on Sunday. (formula1.com) That line landed because Red Bull started 2026 looking quick in testing. In Bahrain in February, Hadjar said the new Red Bull-Ford power unit was performing “way beyond” his expectations, and rivals were already talking about strong straight-line speed and energy deployment. (the-race.com) Then the season started, and the picture changed fast. Sky Sports reported Red Bull had only 12 points after the first two race weekends of 2026, which was the team’s lowest return after two races since 2015. (skysports.com) Part of that was reliability. Hadjar retired in Australia with an engine-related problem, and Max Verstappen retired in China with a coolant fault, which meant Red Bull was fighting two separate fires at once: finishing races and finding pace. (skysports.com) The bigger worry was that both drivers were describing the same feel from the car. Verstappen called the RB22 “incredibly tough to drive” in Shanghai, and Hadjar said in Japan that the car felt very different in qualifying and not in a good way. (skysports.com) (formula1.com) In Formula One terms, that usually means the car is fast only inside a tiny operating window. A setup window is the narrow range where ride height, tire temperature, and balance all line up; if the car falls outside it, the lap feels less like a knife and more like a shopping cart with one bad wheel. (formula1.com) (skysports.com) Hadjar had already sounded the alarm in China on March 13. After Sprint Qualifying in Shanghai, he said Red Bull needed “a bit more of everything,” including grip and maybe power, after ending up two seconds off pole and 10th on the grid for the Sprint. (motorsportweek.com) That is why a blunt social-media comment carries weight in the paddock. When a 21-year-old driver says the car is slow and awkward after Red Bull had sold the winter as a strong reset, he is not just venting; he is confirming that the team’s early-2026 problem is the chassis balance as much as the engine project. (the-race.com) (motorsportweek.com) (skysports.com) Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has already admitted the package showed “significant shortcomings” in China. Once the team principal says that publicly and both drivers say the car is a fight, every practice session turns into a test session, with setup changes and factory updates taking priority over short-term comfort. (skysports.com) So Hadjar’s criticism is not really about one post or one bad lap at Suzuka. It is about Red Bull entering a brand-new 2026 rules era with a car that looked sharp in February, scored like a midfield team in March, and now has both of its drivers saying out loud that the balance is not where a title contender’s balance should be. (the-race.com) (skysports.com) (formula1.com)