Red Bull explain how Max Verstappen avoided disqualification after Isack Hadjar incident
While his team-mate's car was found to be illegal, Max Verstappen's passed scrutineering.
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has explained how Max Verstappen avoided a disqualification after his team-mate Isack Hadjar’s car was found to be illegal.
The Frenchman’s car was found to be out of regulation following qualifying, leading to him starting at the back of the grid, and many had wondered how Verstappen was not found guilty of a similar issue.
Laurent Mekies clarifies Isack Hadjar disqualification
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Hadjar’s floor was found to be illegal as it protruded two millimetres beyond the dimensions defined in the F1 2026 technical regulations and as Verstappen was driving the same car, many had predicted he too would find himself at the back of the grid.
Instead, Verstappen’s car passed scrutineering and he kept his P2 spot, leading some to wonder if the Dutchman was on a different setup to his team-mate but Mekies insisted it was human error rather than any strategy choice.
“They were on the exact same spec,” Mekies told media including PlanetF1.com. “We made a mistake in Isack’s car.
“It’s very simple, the car was found to be two millimetres too wide. We should have spotted it earlier in our routine checks. We did not and it’s painful but it’s easy to fix.”
It was a difficult weekend for Red Bull with Verstappen’s early spin shortly before Hadjar’s race-ending crash but there were still positives to take away, namely how much the team has appeared to have caught up with the top position over the break.
In assessment of those upgrades, Mekies described it was a “definitive step forward.”
“We left Japan 1.2 seconds away from pole,” Mekies said. “China, 1.0 second away from pole.
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“Competition was not going to wait for us with their updates. So everybody has updated the car, but certainly we knew that on top of the development race, we had to solve some of our issues, and we knew there was lap time in it, so to see us this weekend qualifying six tenths away from pole on Friday and less than two tenths away from pole on Saturday, is a big indication of the size of the progress.
“What number is the correct one? We don’t know, but compared to where we were it’s something much better than anything we have been able to show this year.
“[It will] probably take a few hours for the guys to extract the true race pace, given that we were very offset with the strategy with Max. But I think overall, big picture, again, race pace was strong, confirming the good sign shown in quali, not strong enough for P1 and P2 but perhaps able to see the fight between P3, P4 and P5 so again, some things that we had not shown so far this season and it’s credit to everyone back in Milton Keynes for such an important step forward.
“Don’t get me wrong, we have not cracked everything we wanted to. So us against us, there is more we want to extract out of our package, and then we are conscious that the development race will be on and competition will bring stuff next race.”
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Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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