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Motorsport

Red Bull praises "fantastic" debut for Isack Hadjar at F1 Australian GP

Isack Hadjar Red Bull Australian GP Laurent Mekies Max Verstappen McLaren

Laurent Mekies tipped his hat to Red Bull debutant Isack Hadjar after a very impressive start to the 2026 Formula 1 campaign at the Australian Grand Prix.

The 21-year-old may have retired early in the Melbourne contest due to a power unit failure, but he impressed until then with third in qualifying and almost taking the lead at race start.

It marked a stark contrast to Hadjar’s predecessors, who have all struggled against Max Verstappen in the sister car, causing that second seat to be a real problem for Red Bull.

Now, the Austrian outfit is confident it’s found the right team-mate for the four-time world champion, especially as Hadjar’s performance came despite various mechanical faults impacting his preparation in pre-season.

“He did a fantastic weekend,” said team principal Mekies. “Coming here, fairly limited mileage in testing, with a bit of lack of luck there, and he came here from the very first lap, FP1, Friday, on the right pace.

“We were able to split the testing programme between the cars, get double the amount of information. He went to qualifying with everything, that means a first time qualifying with these rules, absolutely nailed it. Put the car in P3, which is probably as high as it could have been on Saturday.

Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing (Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images)

“So, hats off, really and today, he was on his way to have a mega start before he realised we didn't have the battery charge and I think the pace would have been good enough to fight with the McLaren.”

That would have put him around Verstappen’s finishing position, having risen from 20th - due to his crash in Q1 - to sixth while applying late pressure on McLaren’s Lando Norris, though ultimately coming short.

The early signs are therefore positive, but the issue of no battery charge at race start was prevalent across both Red Bull cars - as was the case at Mercedes before it finished 1-2.

“It's our responsibility to avoid that situation,” added Mekies. “We have been caught by some limitations of the way you can charge and discharge the battery in the formation lap. If we are the only ones who have been caught by that, it means that we have not done a very good job. So, it's what it is.

“Basically, with the unusual behaviours that drivers need to have on a formation lap, with acceleration, braking, acceleration, braking to warm your brakes, to warm your tyres, etc, we ended up in a point where we were unable anymore to get to the right state of charge for the race start.

“We had to build up that battery level through the first lap, which obviously was not enjoyable.”