Isack Hadjar reveals 'disaster' ahead of United States GP: 'Completely killed'

Isack Hadjar has described his build-up to the United States Grand Prix as "a disaster" and his Red Bull as "undriveable".

Hadjar finished Friday's opening practice session at the Circuit of the Americas down in 14th, more than a second and a half off pace-setter Charles Leclerc in his Ferrari.

Although he improved to ninth in the second session, 1.1s behind Leclerc, it was his comments over the team radio, and in the paddock afterwards, that pointed to a deeper problem with Red Bull's tyre behaviour through COTA's fast opening sector.

Hadjar explained that his lap-time advantage built in sector one evaporated almost immediately once the softs began to degrade.

Asked about his radio messages expressing frustration with the compound, Hadjar did not hold back.

"It's just a disaster," he said. "After sector one, where I basically made most of my lap time, from sector one to the end of the lap, I was slower than on the medium. It [the car] was just undriveable. I was losing the front end massively.

"So we need to have a look because that's not normal, why there's so much deg on one lap."

[Article continues below]

Hadjar concern over 'such a bad feeling'

Pressed on whether the issue was isolated to the front axle after the first sector, Hadjar was blunt.

"Completely killed in the high speed," he said. "Completely killed."

Asked whether a setup tweak could help balance things out, the 22-year-old suggested Red Bull needed to understand why its approach differed from what appeared to be working on team-mate Max Verstappen's side of the garage.

"Yeah, if they manage to do it on the other side," he said.

"I think the [tyre] temperatures are going sky high, and we're going at the same speed, so we need to tweak something on the car balance because we're running different stuff [on setup].

"We have to try, but to have such a bad feeling, I'm a bit surprised, to be honest."