Hadjar: Red Bull’s car was “completely gone” in Austin

Red Bull arrived in Austin riding a wave of momentum, but Friday’s running at the Circuit of the Americas exposed a familiar vulnerability: getting the RB22 into the right window is proving harder than expected.

Max Verstappen kept the team firmly in the hunt, finishing second in FP1 and third in FP2, behind Charles Leclerc on both occasions.

His team-mate Isack Hadjar, however, endured a far more frustrating afternoon, admitting that changes to his car had taken its set-up in the wrong direction, leaving him struggling to drive it, mainly on the Pirelli’s soft tyres.

Verstappen remains a proven force at COTA, having reached the podium every year since 2017, but Red Bull’s Friday suggested that another fight at the front will require more than simply carrying its recent form into Texas.

Verstappen finds promise amid COTA’s bumps

The Dutchman had already voiced concerns about the circuit’s bumpy surface on Thursday, and the challenge of balancing the car through the track’s contrasting corners remained central to Red Bull’s work across both sessions.

Still, Verstappen emerged with reason for optimism, even if he stopped short of declaring the RB22 fully sorted.

"It's been a positive start to the weekend. This track is never easy when it comes to finding the right compromise between the low and high-speed corners", the Dutchman said after FP2.

"The bumps make it even more difficult, so you’re trying to find a good balance in the car and get into a rhythm. That’s what we’ve been working on between FP1 and FP2. There’s still a bit more work to do to fine-tune that balance, but it wasn’t a bad day at all."

Verstappen’s pace offers Red Bull a solid platform, but the team knows that the margins are tight and that the car’s balance must hold up across a demanding lap.

Hadjar pays the price for setup changes

Hadjar’s Friday unravelled in FP2. Ninth and around a second off the pace, the rookie found the car manageable on medium tyres before the switch to softs exposed the consequences of the setup changes.

“We had an okay FP1 and then in FP2 I felt okay as well on the medium [compound tyres], even though we changed the car,” said Hadjar, speaking to Formula1.com after the second session.

“But on the soft, the car was completely gone for me. Very difficult to drive, so I need to turn things around tomorrow, sit down and see what we can do because the car made a massive step down.

“We need to bring at least back to the level it was [on Friday] morning.”

• United States Grand Prix Free Practice 2 - Results

Technical director Pierre Wache conceded that Red Bull had underestimated the difficulty of finding the right compromise on COTA’s bumpy, technically demanding layout.

“This track is quite bumpy – to rebalance the car was more difficult than we expected,” commented the Frenchman.

“Then we have a lot of work to do on both cars, to be honest, and especially on Isack’s [Hadjar] car to try to rebalance high speed to low speed that is challenging.

“The main focus is also the race, we have to be careful to not focus too much on the one-lap performance – here, the degradation in the race is very important.”

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