Isack Hadjar is unbothered by the reaction of Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko to his crash in Melbourne last week.
The Racing Bulls driver failed to start his first race for the team after losing control of his car in treacherous conditions during the formation lap at Albert Park. A tearful Hadjar was consoled by Lewis Hamilton’s father Anthony, though Marko called the scene “embarrassing” when he spoke to an Austrian television channel later.
Hadjar made light of Marko’s reaction when it was put to him in today’s FIA press conference ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix. “I found it embarrassing, myself,” he admitted.
“Helmut, I had him on the phone a day later and it’s all good. I’ve known him [for] a few years now, I know how he works.
“Also, another point, I think [when he] said that he was speaking German, it was reinterpreted differently. You don’t know about the body language, I didn’t see the footage. So I can’t say much.”
The 20-year-old said he was grateful for the support he received after the incident. “I’ve seen all the love from the fans and the people, I did not expect that at all when I binned it in the wall, so that was nice.”
He rebounded “quite quickly” from the emotional low-point. “I would say on Monday already I felt quite a lot better,” said Hadjar ahead of this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix.
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“Especially knowing that it’s a back-to-back weekend so I’ve got to run [again] quite early, not having a month to dwell on it.”
Hadjar’s team mate Yuki Tsunoda pulled off a surprise result by qualifying fifth and was in the hunt for points before pitting too late to change tyres when the conditions changed. However Hadjar drew encouragement from the team’s performance in the first round following pre-season testing in Bahrain.
“I would say that we were surprisingly faster than we thought, looking at Bahrain,” he said. “Of course, in Bahrain, it’s hard to really understand where you’re at in the midfield. You don’t know how much everyone is hiding or not.
“But going into Melbourne the car was really good and straight from FP1 I think I had a really, really nice feeling with the car. I was quite comfortable and I was as close [to] Yuki as I wanted to be, so I think there were a lot of positives in terms of pure performance.
This article will be updated
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