Isack Hadjar airs Red Bull desperation after 'horrific' F1 experience

Isack Hadjar has aired his desperation "to have a car that is working better" after a troubled Singapore GP his Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies called "horrific."

Hadjar suffered from multiple issues on track at Marina Bay, starting with a loss of power early in the Sprint, forcing his retirement. 

Between the Sprint and qualifying, Red Bull then opted to change Hadjar's power unit for an older one from his pool. Early in Q1, he then suffered from gearbox issues and was unable to set a lap time. 

This meant he was forced to go to the stewards to seek permission to take the start, which was granted as he recovered to 10th place in the grand prix from the pit-lane, stealing a late point away from Alpine's Pierre Gasly as team-mate Max Verstappen roared to a second successive victory in the resurgent RB22 machine. 

Since his return in Azerbaijan, Hadjar also suffered battery issues on the late safety car restart in Sepang, dropping from third to fifth, whilst he did take a podium in Baku on what was a cleanly executed weekend.

With the car now proving to be a race-winning machine, Hadjar has expressed his desperation to be back in the mix and claim his first grand prix victory.

"Since Malaysia, I am just desperate to have a car that is working a bit better on my side, and to fight for a win because at the moment, it is not possible to fight," Hadjar told media, including RacingNews365.

"We need to reset and understand what has happened since Sunday in Malaysia, and to make sure we come back in Austin and fight for podiums. 

"It was a challenging [weekend] for my mechanics. They suffered quite a lot for just one point, so it was definitely their weekend, and they deserve better."

His team boss then added that the team did not "give him any chance" to show his competitive pace. 

"We had a pretty horrific weekend on Isack's side of the garage. We basically didn't give him any chance to do any competitive laps before the main race on Sunday," said Mekies. 

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Red Bull take responsibility

Adding further detail, Mekies added that responsibility for the problems on Hadjar's car was "on us" for not providing him the equipment.

"We had a number of different mechanical issues, some on the power unit, some on the gearbox, some other glitches. So it was really like a nightmare weekend," Mekies said.

"In that context, the crew- not only Isack's crew, but it also was fully involving Max's crew, who helped the other side of the garage, was under the car, changing massive components all weekend long, up to parc ferme before before the race start, which is probably not what you want, on the last of three triple-header races in hot and humid weather. 

"So a huge, huge, massive congratulations to the crew for what they've done. I've never seen such an incredible turnaround and to then deliver a faultless race car on Sunday. 

"Nonetheless, we have lost the chance to see Isack's speed. He still showed very, very strong pace, which only confirmed that he would probably have been up there on the sharp end of the classification. 

"So it's on us, but he certainly has shown that he had the speed with a few laps he'd done."