F1 Rookie Isack Hadjar Nearly Outqualifies Max Verstappen, Misses by 0.283s

Racing Bulls Formula One driver Isack Hadjar delivered his best qualifying result in his rookie season thus far, securing P4 for the Dutch Grand Prix. Hadjar, a Red Bull junior, came close to beating Max Verstappen but missed out by just 0.283 seconds.

The qualifying round at Zandvoort saw small margins between the cars, especially those that finished in the top ten. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri broke the lap record by delivering a blisteringly fast lap time of 1:08.662 seconds, securing pole position, while Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who secured a P10 race start, set his best time of 1:09.630 seconds. This shows the minimal difference of less than a second between all cars that made it to Q3.

Hadjar set a lap time of 1:09.208, which came very close to the 1:08.925 set by the four-time world champion, who will start in third place tomorrow, behind Piastri and Lando Norris. When Hadjar was asked if he was happy about his best lap of the season thus far, he said:

“Very happy, you know, finally I’m quite satisfied with what I did. So yeah, it was a good job for me.

“To be honest, it was the car being exactly like I wanted. It was responding really well, especially on that final lap. Probably we got a bit lucky with the wind gusts, you know. I don’t know, we need to look at the data. But yeah, I pulled an amazing lap and it sticked because the car was great.”

When asked if that was his best lap in F1 and if the car was at its limit in his Q3 run, the 20-year-old driver said:

“Surely it’s probably the best lap I’ve had this year because it’s a very hard track, really demanding. And I put it all on the line, especially that final corner. I thought I did pretty well there to actually gain one more tenth. And yeah, that was special.”

With Verstappen starting in front of him, Hadjar was asked about his strategy for the first corner. He said:

“I mean, he’s starting on the clean side of the grid. He has great starts usually. So actually I expect him to probably overtake a car ahead, if anything.”

When quizzed on whether he will be able to hold off cars behind him, given that it is not an easy track for overtaking, he said:

“To be fair, I don’t think it’s really difficult to overtake here. Looking at how long the straight is and the DRS zone starts very early. So if they have more pace, they will overtake. And that’s it. We need to accept it and be smart.”