Isack Hadjar has said Red Bull “needs to do better” after engine troubles forced him to retire from Formula 1‘s 2026 Australian Grand Prix.
Hadjar impressed on his debut for the Milton-Keynes-based outfit with the third fastest lap during Qualifying on Saturday, at the Albert Park Circuit.
However, it all disintegrated, quite literally, on Sunday, as the French-Algerian driver’s RBPT-Ford power unit conked off on Lap 12 of the 58-lap race.
Hadjar revealed that his power unit had been troubling him since the very start of the race, something he pointed out denied him a shot at taking the race lead from George Russell into Turn 3.
“The start was amazing, I mean, I started the race with no battery, so the launch, very good launch,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“I was taking the lead easily, so that was, at least that’s a good point of the day, we had very good starts, and once I thought, oh, I’m going to take the lead, no more power, so that was great.
“You can imagine for a couple of laps I’m spending time to just recover, engine sounded terrible, so I knew I was not going to finish the race. So, yeah, it was just a shame.
“We’ve been in the mix with, I think, Lewis, it’s hard to fight someone who’s going 30kph faster than you in the straights, that was my only highlight of the day.”
When prodded about the start, Hadjar insisted that the battery state off the line was not a technical issue, rather, just an oversight from the team.
He took cognisance of how the team “needs to do better” while evaluating how all the teams still have a lot to learn about these new power units.
“It’s not a technical issue, it’s just, we need to do better to avoid this from happening,” he asserted.
“We didn’t manage to simulate it in the whole six days of testing, in Free Practice as well, so, honestly, it’s just new scenarios, you know, race scenarios are different, so, yeah, it’s a good experience at least.”
Red Bull need to ace “difficult” engine calibration process
Looking ahead at the rest of the season, the 21-year-old sees potential in the RB22.
That said, for the team to be able to extract the maximum potential from its package, it needs to get gremlins sorted out on the power unit side of things quickly.
Hadjar highlighted how engine calibration has been difficult for Red Bull, and its rivals, given just how “young” these new 2026 engines are.
“We just had a very smooth weekend so far, you know, when you practice sessions, I think on these young engines they are not as demanding as a race procedure, laps to the grid, staying still, temperatures are going up and down, so it’s very difficult for the guys,” he concluded.
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