Hadjar wants his first points as a Red Bull driver
There Red Bull closed the first weekend of 2026 – the one which saw the official debut of the power unit built on the Milton Keynes-Ford axis – with Isack Hadjar’s third place in Qualifying and Max Verstappen’s comeback in the race to sixth place overall.
In the Melbourne GP Hadjar had to raise the white flag after a few laps due to a reliability problem, while Verstappen was unable to overcome Lando Norris. In view of the Shanghai weekend, the four-time world champion is particularly worried about the tire degradation given that in Australia this aspect was quite critical for Red Bull.
“It was nice to get back to racing and to see that we managed to come back well in the race was promising – the words of Max Verstappen – the team has done a great job to get to where we are, but there is still a lot to do and a lot to learn from this race. In Melbourne we were particularly affected by tire degradation, which could also be a problem at this Shanghai circuit, and tire usage is also an aspect we can evaluate. We will continue to collect data and work to improve the car, we are still learning and we want to face this week with greater determination. Of course, it’s a Sprint weekend, so we’ll have less time to work on the car set-up, so we need to make sure we get off on the right foot. The circuit is quite unique, with quite a challenging layout with a variety of different corners, but with plenty of overtaking opportunities.”
Isack Hadjar he will be hunting for his first points as a Red Bull driver: “My debut with the Team in Melbourne was a special moment for me and Saturday was a perfect start. Unfortunately, the weekend didn’t end the way we wanted, but we are motivated to come back stronger this week in Shanghai. I want to put in a good performance over the weekend and continue to test myself against the best. With a Sprint weekend you have even more opportunities to achieve great results and that’s what I aim to do.”
