A late battery deficit denied the Red Bull driver his podium
Isack Hadjar left Sepang with fifth place, ten championship points and a clear sense of grievance.
On a Sunday when his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen claimed the team’s first victory of the 2026 season, the Frenchman had no appetite for celebration.
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A podium had been within his grasp in the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, and it slipped away in the closing laps.
A Weekend That Began With Promise
The signs on Saturday were encouraging. Qualifying produced a Red Bull one-three, with Verstappen on pole position and Hadjar third, evidence that the team had found genuine speed on its return to Sepang.
It was Verstappen’s first pole of the season and the first for Red Bull’s partnership with Ford power units.
Hadjar’s advantage did not survive the paperwork. Red Bull fitted a seventh internal combustion engine to his car, when only four are permitted, and the resulting five-place grid penalty dropped him to eighth.
He admitted the timing was unfortunate, given that the penalty landed at a circuit where the car looked so competitive.
A Difficult Start in the Wet
Sunday brought rain, a restart delayed by software problems and a race that began behind the Safety Car.
Verstappen reported a lack of power over the radio almost immediately and was passed by both Mercedes cars. Lewis Hamilton, running second, suffered throttle trouble that sent him down the order.
Hadjar’s own day started badly. He ran through the gravel on the formation lap on a wet track. Once the race got under way, however, he recovered well.
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Choosing intermediate tyres, he passed Liam Lawson for fourth on lap six and held that position, even as Hamilton fought back through the field and applied pressure in the final third of the race.
The Podium That Vanished
The decisive sequence arrived late. George Russell retired on lap 50, promoting Hadjar to third place.
A final Safety Car period then set up a four-lap sprint to the flag, and that restart undid him.
Hamilton had switched to softer tyres under the Safety Car, and Hadjar could not hold him off. Hamilton passed at Turn 1 on lap 53, taking his first podium since Silverstone, and Charles Leclerc followed him through.
Hadjar finished fifth, nearly four seconds behind Hamilton. Verstappen won from Kimi Antonelli, with Hamilton third and Leclerc fourth.
What Hadjar Said
The driver was direct in his assessment. He said he did not understand how the car ended up with no battery in the last laps, and that he could not defend on the straights against the Ferraris.
In his view, the team lost the podium over something stupid.
He was careful to separate the problem from the engine itself. According to Hadjar, the power unit was fine, and the difficulty was confined to the first two laps after the restart, when the car was far down on battery.
He also described having little grip even behind the Safety Car, and he summed up the experience with the phrase “a joke.”
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Reflecting on the weekend as a whole, he described Sepang as “really one race to put in the bin.”
He added that the team had been quicker than Mercedes through the weekend, yet in the race looked nowhere.
The comparison matters, because Antonelli finished second while Russell failed to reach the flag.
The Gap to Verstappen
The sharpest point in Hadjar’s frustration concerns his teammate. Over the 30 laps run in green-flag conditions, Hadjar lost an average of 0.881 seconds per lap to Verstappen, who won by 2.307 seconds from Antonelli.
Hadjar crossed the line 8.571 seconds behind the winner.
A gap of that size inside one team invites questions. Hadjar offered no firm explanation, and Red Bull has not publicly identified a single cause.
The available evidence points to several factors: a grid penalty, a gravel excursion, the grip he said he lacked and a battery shortfall at the decisive moment.
Which carried the most weight is something the team’s data will need to answer.
Verstappen’s afternoon was not straightforward. Having started from pole, he reported a lack of power on the first controlled lap and was jumped by both Mercedes, yet he still won.
That underlines how much a wet race hinged on decisions and timing, and it makes Hadjar’s margin to him harder to read.
Context for a Young Driver
Hadjar was promoted to Red Bull for 2026 after his debut season with Racing Bulls, and he has worked through a wrist injury that kept him out of three grands prix.
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He returned in Azerbaijan and celebrated third place in Baku, which makes the Sepang disappointment sharper. Having tasted a podium once more, he had every reason to expect another.
What Comes Next
Red Bull now holds a result to build on and a question to answer. Verstappen’s victory and the one-three in qualifying suggest the car has moved forward,
yet Hadjar’s experience shows that energy management at restarts is a problem the team must solve. If it can understand why his battery drained so quickly,
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he has the pace to turn Sepang’s frustration into future points.
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