Hadjar (Red Bull Racing): Surprised himself by the clever strategic trick

At first glance, this strategy seemed unusual – even to the driver himself. Red Bull Racing driver Isack Hadjar revealed after the Formula 1 race in Belgium that he was puzzled by his own strategy and only realised the deeper meaning behind it later on. Hadjar had, in fact, made a pit stop early in the race – and did so twice.

Hadjar only understood the strategy later

Hadjar: “I was a bit puzzled by the pit stops at first. It was only after a few laps that I realised why we’d done that.” With a laugh, he added: “I suppose I was a bit slow on the uptake.”

George Russell had gone off the track on the first lap of the race. His Mercedes was stuck in the gravel trap. That’s why the safety car had to come out. The field was therefore driving more slowly, so tyre changes took less time. It made sense to come into the pits then. But twice? The key to it all: Hadjar had started on hard tyres. His team switched him to mediums and then straight back to hards. This meant he’d fulfilled his mandatory tyre change – he’d been out on two different tyre compounds, as required by the regulations for races (the only exceptions being wet-weather races).

Hadjar was already well down the field anyway, lost little time with the tyre changes due to the safety car phase – and didn’t get caught up in traffic either, as he was so far back to begin with. He had, in fact, started from 21st on the grid. This was due to a penalty for an engine change, which had relegated him to the back of the grid.

A strong comeback: Hadjar fought his way up from 21st on the grid to 6th in the race. A truly impressive performance, which Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies praised as Hadjar’s best race so far in Formula 1. Incidentally, Hadjar could have finished the race on the hard tyres – but his team called him in for a change after all, whilst a virtual safety car was in force due to debris being cleared from the track. So, clever planning once again.

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Perfect strategy!

Hadjar after the race: “That was the best result we could have achieved today. We had a clear plan from the start and implemented it exactly as planned. The strategy was perfect and our pace was strong. Everything just came together perfectly.”