Laurent Mekies defends Isack Hadjar after difficult F1 Miami GP weekend. Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies defended Isack Hadjar after the French driver’s difficult Miami GP.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has publicly defended Isack Hadjar following the French driver’s difficult weekend at the Miami Grand Prix.

Red Bull team principal accepts responsibility

Red Bull showed signs of recovery in Miami, even if the final points tally was not especially impressive, with all 14 points collected by Max Verstappen. The updated RB22 allowed the Dutch driver to secure a front-row start in qualifying, representing a major step forward considering that in Japan the four-time world champion had failed to reach Q3 while teammate Isack Hadjar had managed to progress.

In Florida, however, Hadjar endured a difficult weekend that ended in disappointing fashion after he crashed into the wall only a few laps into the race. The French driver had originally been set to start from the fifth row of the grid before being disqualified due to an irregularity found on the floor of his Red Bull.

Hadjar’s qualifying deficit to Verstappen was significant — close to one full second — but Laurent Mekies explained that the gap was not entirely related to driving performance.

“In qualifying, Isack Hadjar had a straight-line performance deficit compared to Verstappen because of us. I won’t go into the details,” Laurent Mekies explained, as reported by L’Equipe.

“Immediately after the race incident I went to tell him that it wasn’t his fault if he ended up at the back of the grid after qualifying.”

“I would not describe his Miami weekend as worrying. On the contrary, I believe he would have been very strong in the race because his lap times were extremely competitive.”

The public defense of Isack Hadjar by Laurent Mekies reveals the internal technical variables that often go unseen by the fans and media. While the headlines focused on the crash and the disqualification, the team’s admission of a performance imbalance highlights the ongoing efforts to harmonize the updated RB22 across both sides of the garage. Despite a turbulent weekend in Miami, the Red Bull leadership remains confident in Hadjar’s underlying pace, viewing the Florida event not as a decline in form but as a series of unfortunate technical hurdles that the team must resolve to support their young driver’s development.