Red Bull responds to Hadjar team orders flashpoint in Baku

Isack Hadjar was denied a wave-through on Max Verstappen despite having stronger pace during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Hadjar made his F1 return in Baku and scored an impressive podium result, but seemed to grow increasingly frustrated by inaction from the pit wall during the race.

Isack Hadjar’s ‘team player’ mentality hailed by Red Bull

Despite starting ahead of Verstappen in Azerbaijan, Hadjar quickly found himself behind on Saturday.

Running the soft tyres in the opening stint – and going over half the distance on the favourable rubber – the Frenchman was initially happy to sit behind his teammate.

But when he felt he was being held up, he sounded out the pit wall about switching the two, so he could chase down Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.

This request was denied and, despite making a couple of lunges on Verstappen, the two remained nose-to-tail until the safety car was deployed for the first time, and both drivers changes tyres – the four-time champion now on softs while Hadjar took the harder medium option.

Now holding the advantage, Verstappen cruised into the distance to battle George Russell for the victory.

Although Hadjar had shown an element of frustration, Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies praised him for ultimately accepting the decision.

“It shows you how cleverly the kid is racing, and how much brain capacity is developing while in the car, and how much emotional control he is managing to have,” Mekies told PlanetF1.com and others.

“It’s an indicator of steps he has made in all these areas, on top of producing more speed.

“It’s exactly that trajectory that has been impressing us every day since he has joined the team, and probably last year as well.

“That’s also why we want to give him the best possible environment for him to continue to develop, because that step was truly impressive.”

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Azerbaijan proves Red Bull approach to Isack Hadjar’s recovery

Hadjar sat out three races following the summer shutdown, with Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson filling in.

Red Bull maintained throughout Hadjar’s absence that it would not field him again until he was 100% fit.

After Baku, Mekies believes the Frenchman’s podium result proved this approach to be correct.

“I think it was outstanding what Isack has produced this weekend, really outstanding,” he said in response to a question from PlanetF1.com.

“The most important thing is that he felt straight away good in the car, no pain, which means that everything we know every time that we met together in the last few weeks, and we say we will wait for Isack to come back at 100%, because that’s the priority, well, that’s what happened.

“He was in the car. He didn’t have any pain. Even without pain, it’s not an easy track to go back to because of the no margin for error, and he has been building up his rhythm session after session very calmly with a lot of positive energy.”

Mekies added: “He has raised the bar again. We say to each other very often that we have seen him adding something to the business every time he was going out on the track in the first part of the season, and he is continuing to do that.

“On top of that, allow me to say he also raced extremely cleverly with Max, very disciplined with his tyres, and he told us to have very strong teamwork between the two, between the pit wall, and ultimately, this produced the best result possible.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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