Silverstone may prove to be a far more significant weekend for Red Bull than the qualifying results alone suggest. While the team ended Saturday as only the third-fastest force behind Mercedes and Ferrari, the most eye-catching statistic came from the battle inside the garage. For the first time in almost two years, Max Verstappen was beaten by a teammate in a Q3 session for a Sunday Grand Prix.
That teammate was Isack Hadjar, whose outstanding performance secured fifth place on the grid, two positions ahead of the Dutchman, with Lando Norris’ McLaren separating the two Red Bulls. More importantly, this was not simply an isolated result but another sign of a trend that has gradually developed throughout the 2026 Formula 1 season.
Isack Hadjar ends one of the longest qualifying streaks of the Verstappen era
Although Isack Hadjar had already finished ahead of Max Verstappen on two occasions earlier this season, those results came under unusual circumstances. In Melbourne, Verstappen was unable to complete his qualifying lap because of a reliability issue, while at Suzuka he was surprisingly eliminated in Q2. Silverstone was completely different, with both drivers reaching Q3 and competing under identical conditions.
That makes Hadjar’s achievement considerably more significant. Rather than benefiting from misfortune on the other side of the garage, the Frenchman displayed competitive pace throughout qualifying and was consistently just a little more effective than the four-time world champion, who failed to gain the expected advantage from the upgrades introduced at the Red Bull Ring.
The season-long qualifying battle now stands at 6-3, illustrating a much more balanced picture than Red Bull has experienced in recent years.
The previous time Max Verstappen was beaten by a teammate in Q3 for a Grand Prix qualifying session dates back to the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when Sergio Pérez qualified ahead of him. Since then, the Dutchman had won every internal qualifying battle until Saturday at Silverstone.
Energy management continues to expose the RB22’s weaknesses
Beyond the comparison between the two drivers, Silverstone once again highlighted one of the RB22’s biggest technical limitations. On a circuit featuring long flat-out sections and demanding energy deployment requirements, Red Bull once again struggled to maximise its one-lap performance.
Hadjar explained that energy deployment management played a crucial role in his qualifying performance.
“Everyone has their own energy deployment strategy. We have our own approach and Sector 3 is the one I like the most. I struggle more in the first sector, but in the end it’s all about managing the energy.”
This is not the first time the young Frenchman has excelled on circuits where efficient energy management is particularly important. Earlier this season at Albert Park and Suzuka, he had already demonstrated an impressive ability to optimise electrical energy deployment throughout the lap, extracting the maximum from both the RB22 and its power unit. Silverstone appears to provide further evidence that, at least this weekend, he handled that aspect better than Max Verstappen.
Even so, Hadjar remains realistic about Red Bull’s prospects for Sunday’s race. He acknowledged that both Mercedes and Ferrari appear to belong to another category in terms of race pace, meaning his most realistic target will be defending fifth place rather than attacking the cars ahead.
Max Verstappen points to energy management and top speed
On Max Verstappen’s side of the garage, the concerns run much deeper. The Dutchman identified both top speed and energy management as the main reasons behind his disappointing qualifying performance.
“There were two problems. We didn’t have a good balance and we were slower than everyone else on the straights. We couldn’t solve that situation. When you push harder on the throttle, you use more energy and everything becomes a negative spiral because you keep losing time all the way to the end of the lap. It was really painful for me. We need to solve these issues because if you’re lacking top speed at a circuit like this, everything becomes much more difficult.”
The reigning world champion also revealed that both Red Bull cars followed virtually the same technical direction throughout the weekend, making the performance gap even harder to explain.
“The two cars had almost identical setups. On my side, though, we simply lacked speed and we don’t understand why. Even the team doesn’t have an explanation at the moment. It’s something we’ll need to analyse because it’s another problem we have to solve.”
The impression is that the progress shown by Pierre Waché’s RB22 at the Red Bull Ring last weekend was influenced largely by the specific characteristics of the Austrian circuit. Silverstone, by contrast, once again exposed the weaknesses of a package that continues to struggle whenever aerodynamic efficiency, top speed and energy management become decisive factors.
In that context, Isack Hadjar’s qualifying victory over Max Verstappen—perhaps only temporary given the Dutchman’s well-known ability to bounce back—takes on even greater significance. It does not simply reflect a difficult Saturday for the reigning world champion, but also suggests that Red Bull has entered a phase in which even the team’s internal hierarchy can no longer be considered untouchable.
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