Hadjar reveals how he could have avoided Russell collision

Isack Hadjar has been left wondering what might have been after his Mexico City Grand Prix unravelled on the opening lap, but the Racing Bulls driver has also admitted that he could have avoided his collision with George Russell had he approached the situation differently.

Although the stewards placed the blame firmly on Russell, handing the Mercedes driver a 10-second penalty for the incident, Hadjar was surprisingly candid in assessing his own part in the encounter.

The Frenchman felt he had every right to defend his position at Turn 6, but conceded that he should perhaps have anticipated his rival's determination to force his way through.

It was a costly lesson for a driver who had started seventh and briefly looked capable of challenging much further up the order.

Hadjar rues trusting Russell as Mexico race falls apart

Hadjar had made an excellent getaway at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, moving up two places and putting himself in a promising position behind the leading contenders.

But his afternoon took a dramatic turn when Russell, who suffered a deployment issue at the start, attempted to attack into Turn 6, with the Mercedes keeping his front wheels alongside the Red Bull's rear tyres.

The resulting contact sent Hadjar spinning and dropped him to the back of the field. While Russell was subsequently deemed responsible by the stewards, Hadjar's own assessment was less black and white.

“It's a shame,” he said. “I honestly did not expect George to stick a wheel up Turn 6, because the corner was completely mine. I was aware of him, and I shouldn't have trusted him in the end, but it happens. Clearly, it's a shame, it's completely ruined my race.

“To me, honestly, it's my fault if that happened today, the lap-one incident. If I had done a better job yesterday, I wouldn't be starting seventh, maybe we are fighting for better than a podium and we don't meet George on the way.

“These things happen, but it's better to maximise your chance at the front. I should have done a better job.”

Russell, who skipped his post-race media commitments, did not publicly offer his perspective on the collision. Hadjar, meanwhile, was left with minor floor damage and an enormous amount of ground to recover.

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Forced into an early pit stop on lap seven, he subsequently worked his way past Valtteri Bottas, Ryo Hirakawa, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez.

But the timing of his tyre change proved particularly unfortunate, coming shortly before the safety car and red flag interrupted the race.

His underlying pace, at least, offered some encouragement.

“Pace on the medium on the first stint, any time I had free air, was good,” he said.

“When we pitted for the soft, I only did two laps [before the safety car and red flag], but I felt super quick. During that lap one, I was like ‘OK, I have a shot for the podium’, and then it was finished.”

A frustrating afternoon with little room to fight back

The subsequent restart gave Hadjar another opportunity to salvage something, but overtaking proved an exceptionally difficult exercise in Mexico City.

He eventually climbed to 12th after passing Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg, Perez and Alex Albon, although the Racing Bulls driver found himself repeatedly frustrated by the limitations of following other cars in the current generation of machinery.

“Everyone has SM mode [straight mode],” he explained. “It's just a train of cars and there's no way to really overtake.

“I really struggled. I even had a great fight with Checo. He was very late on the brakes in the straight, I wasn't really catching up. It was terribly hard.

“In the end, it's not like Mexico used to be a track where you could overtake [previously]. With the temperatures, the altitude, everything is on fire once you're following someone.”

Speaking before post-race penalties for Oscar Piastri, Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto promoted him to ninth, Hadjar was left looking for positives in an otherwise bruising weekend.

One was the impressive getaway he managed at both starts, something he felt deserved recognition from his team.

“We had a good launch [at both starts], and probably my best start in a while this year,” he said.

“We need to be happy about the job we did. Now we need to understand why it went so well so we can reproduce it.”

That small consolation was welcome, particularly given a run of Sundays that has repeatedly denied him the opportunity to convert promising potential into meaningful results.

“It's frustrating now,” the 22-year-old admitted. “Malaysia, we had a deployment issue; Singapore, reliability all the time; Austin, terrible start, I was blocked in the wrong map.

“Everything is lining up so I have a terrible Sunday at the moment. Once it clicks, it's going to click and it's going to be nice.”