The image is not as striking as when he avoided, thanks to a prodigious reflex, Ritomo Miyata’s ART GP in the Monaco tunnel during qualifying. F2 in 2024, but Isack Hadjar once again came close to a crash during the exercise in Las Vegas. This time it wasn’t the 2023 Super Formula champion, but Oscar piastri, who was slowing down in front of him at the end of Q3. While the Australian had just aborted his lap due to a braking error, the rookie came speeding up behind him and had to narrowly avoid the McLaren, in slow motion on the trajectory.
An incident that spoiled the end of the session for Isack Hadjar, who finished 8th despite having the pace to gain some positions, or even break into the top 5… ahead of Piastri.
“I almost blew it up!” the Racing Bulls driver fumed on Canal+. “When there’s a yellow flag, you have to slow down, but you shouldn’t slam on the brakes like that. I was behind him… I don’t care what he did, the main thing is that I get the yellow flag when I’m on a great lap. We had everything perfectly prepared to have the best track conditions at the end, and you have to slow down. It’s a real shame. I was very comfortable in the rain, we had good pace, so P8 is really not what I wanted to do after Q2.”
“There was a yellow flag when Isack appeared,” The McLaren driver’s analysis follows. “I had eased up. Maybe he hadn’t eased up as much as I had. I was a little off the racing line, but anyway we couldn’t improve our lap at that point.”
Race control deemed the incident unpenalized, especially since Hadjar likely didn’t slow down enough while the yellow flag was clearly displayed. Ultimately, however, the Parisian finds himself in a good position to score points after the four he earned in São Paulo. To do so, he’ll have to fend off the charge of… Charles Leclerc9th on the grid, or even Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli, eliminated in Q1.
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