Photo: Red Bull
Formula 2 championship leader Isack Hadjar has been further penalised following the bizarre incident that ended his Baku qualifying session early.
Starting his first flying lap on his second and final set of tyres inside the last five minutes of qualifying, Red Bull junior Hadjar went straight on at the first corner and into the tyre barrier having been unable to slow his car down. Moments later, his Campos Racing team-mate Pepe Marti did exactly the same, hitting the barrier just to Hadjar’s left.
The incident brought out a red flag and ended both drivers’ sessions early while their rivals had the chance to improve their times when action resumed. Hadjar slipped from ninth to 15th in the order as a result, with Marti finishing up 21st.
Hadjar later had his best qualifying time deleted, further relegating him to 20th place, after stewards determined, in consultation with the race director, that he had been “the sole cause of the red flag”.
This follows the introduction of a new rule for 2024 concerning drivers that cause a red flag, although stewards noted in their decision that it does allow them discretion “to determine if the deletion of the offending driver’s fastest time is warranted”.
Explaining their decision to punish Hadjar, they said: “The failure of the driver to negotiate Turn 1 because the rear brakes had overheated was within the driver and team’s control and as such a penalty was warranted.
“It is important to note that no malintent is implied on the driver’s part by this penalty but rather the intent of the penalty is to recognise the potential harm that other drivers suffered as a result of the red flag.”
Before the stewards made their decision, the top qualifiers were asked in the post-session press conference whether a penalty for Hadjar would be fair.
“If it’s a mechanical issue and you lose the lap, of course that’s not fair at all,” polesitter Richard Verschoor said. “I think both cars had the same issue so I assume it was something with the brakes. In that case it wouldn’t be fair if the laptime gets taken away.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli added: “Let’s wait and see what the stewards say, but looking at the speed he went into the wall it looked like a mechanical failure, so if he gets the time deleted it’s obviously unfair. Then if it comes out that it was his own mistake then it’s fair because he caused the red flag.”
The stewards also came down hard on procedural lapses by teams in the pits during qualifying, including by one of Hadjar’s Campos mechanics who was not wearing his protective visor during a pitstop, leading to a €500 fine for the team.
ART Grand Prix was fined €1500 with a further €1500 suspended because three of its team members were not wearing their armbands in the correct place. Rodin escaped sanction after an investigation into whether Ritomo Miyata’s physio – as a non-operational team member – had directed an air blower towards the brakes.