Pink Bull praises "unbelievable" debut for Isack Hadjar at F1 Australian GP

Laurent Mekies tipped his hat to Pink Bull debutant Isack Hadjar after a really spectacular begin to the 2026 Components 1 marketing campaign on the Australian Grand Prix.

The 21-year-old could have retired early within the Melbourne contest attributable to an influence unit failure, however he impressed till then with third in qualifying and nearly taking the lead at race begin.

It marked a stark distinction to Hadjar’s predecessors, who’ve all struggled towards Max Verstappen within the sister automobile, inflicting that second seat to be an actual drawback for Pink Bull.

Now, the Austrian outfit is assured it’s discovered the suitable team-mate for the four-time world champion, particularly as Hadjar’s efficiency got here regardless of varied mechanical faults impacting his preparation in pre-season.

“He did a unbelievable weekend,” mentioned group principal Mekies. “Coming right here, pretty restricted mileage in testing, with a little bit of lack of luck there, and he got here right here from the very first lap, FP1, Friday, on the suitable tempo.

“We had been capable of break up the testing programme between the automobiles, get double the quantity of data. He went to qualifying with all the pieces, which means a primary time qualifying with these guidelines, completely nailed it. Put the automobile in P3, which might be as excessive because it may have been on Saturday.

Isack Hadjar, Pink Bull Racing

Picture by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Photographs through Getty Photographs

“So, hats off, actually and at present, he was on his option to have a mega begin earlier than he realised we did not have the battery cost and I believe the tempo would have been ok to battle with the McLaren.”

That will have put him round Verstappen’s ending place, having risen from twentieth – attributable to his crash in Q1 – to sixth whereas making use of late strain on McLaren’s Lando Norris, although finally coming brief.

The early indicators are subsequently optimistic, however the challenge of no battery cost at race begin was prevalent throughout each Pink Bull automobiles – as was the case at Mercedes earlier than it completed 1-2.

“It is our accountability to keep away from that state of affairs,” added Mekies. “We have now been caught by some limitations of the way in which you possibly can cost and discharge the battery within the formation lap. If we’re the one ones who’ve been caught by that, it implies that we now have not achieved an excellent job. So, it is what it’s.

“Principally, with the weird behaviours that drivers must have on a formation lap, with acceleration, braking, acceleration, braking to heat your brakes, to heat your tyres, and so on, we ended up in a degree the place we had been unable anymore to get to the suitable state of cost for the race begin.

“We needed to construct up that battery stage by the primary lap, which clearly was not pleasurable.”

Pictures from Australian GP – Sunday

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing