How did Hadjar compare to Tsunoda in first F1 race start at Shanghai?

For Isack Hadjar, Australia doesn’t count.

In our analysis of rookie debuts, thanks to the bumper crop of newcomers trickling into the field across the past six months, there’s been a lot to discuss. Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Gabriel Bortoleto got their appraisals last week but, given Hadjar registered a Did Not Start in the Australia opener, it was impossible to delve into the Racing Bulls driver’s debut run beyond the environs of qualifying.

Thankfully, China offered the Franco-Algerian racer two bites at the cherry to showcase his worth and atone for his blunder Down Under. It’s probably fair to say he achieved that; although he received an unjust reward of nil points owing to his team’s over-commitment to the two-stopper, Hadjar demonstrated great speed and capable race pace throughout the Shanghai weekend and had looked set for a debut top 10.

In outqualifying Yuki Tsunoda for the grand prix, no mean feat in itself, Hadjar proved that underlying pace. It helps that the VCARB 02 appears to be a well-mannered machine – a distinctly different customer to Red Bull’s RB21, which has the same powertrain/gearbox/suspension basis but very little similarity in its on-track characteristics. Still, the 20-year-old’s performance was plenty encouraging for the squad, particularly as Tsunoda has largely dominated his team-mates in recent seasons.

Here’s what we learned about Hadjar’s first full F1 weekend.

Qualifying pace – Hadjar’s bravery leads to tiny margin over Tsunoda

Isack Hadjar, RB F1 Team, Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Both Hadjar and Tsunoda broke through into Q3 in setting the grid for the Chinese Grand Prix. And, after their opening runs, Hadjar was 0.19 seconds faster despite conceding time in the opening sector. Tsunoda was quicker through the winding Turn 1-2-3 complex and took a bit more speed into the Turn 6 braking zone, but this compromised his exit and allowed Hadjar to get on the throttle a smidgen sooner. Interestingly, Hadjar lifted through Turn 7 slightly sooner than his more experienced team-mate, but not by quite as much.

GPS data shows his throttle hovering around the 85% mark, while Tsunoda lifted later and dropped to about 70% throttle in the meantime. As a result, Hadjar simply carried more speed through this section and the momentum swing worked in his favour by about a tenth.

Overall, Hadjar just seemed to be happier in tacking on the throttle earlier through the quicker corners, and incrementally built up speed out of Turn 12/13 as he hit full pedal travel sooner than Tsunoda. And, although Tsunoda was much happier in braking later for Turn 14, the later throttle application was a net laptime penalty; he went in with a 0.1s deficit and exited with a 0.2s one. Slow in, fast out worked nicely for Hadjar.

Before Tsunoda lost adhesion in Turn 13 on his final flyer and sustained a snap of oversteer at the rear, he was tracking at about a tenth behind Hadjar’s second Q3 effort out of the second sector. Perhaps an attempt to use more throttle in the long right-hander went awry; either way, the less experienced driver had the run of pace through the circuit.

Hadjar believed that there was more time available; having been comfortable in Q1 and, having clocked a 1m31.162s at the death of the session to get the second fastest time, the Frenchman felt that wind in Q2 and Q3 had hurt the balance of the car slightly as the circuit was improving. His Q3 headliner was only a tenth faster than that Q1 time, suggesting that the changing wind conditions rather nullified the effect of a grippier track.

“I could never find the same balance, so I was struggling a bit more with the car and I knew I was losing out – I think there was more lap time, more positions to gain,” said Hadjar.

It wasn’t all peachy on one lap; Hadjar fluffed his lines in sprint qualifying, although had been quicker than Tsunoda in SQ1 by – again – a smidgen. The speed is there, and the execution got better through the weekend. There’s something about Shanghai and Hadjar’s style that just seemed to chime, especially as his Racing Bulls’ front end had looked very manageable in the longer corners.

Race pace – Middling sprint, improvements in grand prix, but questions about killer instinct

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team, Isack Hadjar, RB F1 Team, Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

After lining up 15th for the sprint, Hadjar lost a position to Pierre Gasly off the line, although enjoyed a relatively lengthy battle with his countryman throughout the race. But it was clear that being stuck in the pack was detrimental to tyre life in the sprint, as a 19-lap stint on mediums arguably surpassed the limit of the tyres, and thus Hadjar had to be relatively careful.

He made up a place in the opening flurry of laps with a move on F2 title rival Bortoleto, then collected another midway through the sprint when Carlos Sainz pitted. Hadjar collected 13th when Oliver Bearman ran out of tyres towards the end and began to ail.

By comparison, Tsunoda spent the entirety of the race fending off Antonelli, who had coveted the Japanese driver’s stranglehold over sixth place. A fleet-footed start brought Tsunoda ahead off the line, and Lando Norris’ Turn 6 excursion yielded a further upgrade in position. From there, his race was spent containing a potential Antonelli assault; although having clear air ahead made the job slightly more manageable in a tyre management respect, it denied him the chance to match the Italian with DRS assistance. In that vein, Tsunoda’s defence was commendable.

Hadjar admitted after qualifying that he wanted to emulate Tsunoda’s prowess off the starting grid, but was unable to do so; although he expected to lose a position to Antonelli at the start, watching his team-mate also steal past was not on his wishlist. It was a struggle for Hadjar to stick with Tsunoda in DRS range, even if the two drivers were relatively well-matched on the medium tyre.

But the split between the two on race pace with the hard diverged more; although the pace delta wasn’t huge, Tsunoda’s ability to squirrel away time over Hadjar on seemingly every lap allowed his advantage to snowball over the second stint. What’s more is that Tsunoda managed to bank three extra laps on his hard-tyre stint, although the team committed to the two-stopper and effectively took itself out of the running.

In that second hard stint, Tsunoda had just picked up the pace over Hadjar when his front wing decided to spontaneously snap and pulled him out of the running for points. It would have been a tough ask for both drivers to make their way back into the top 10, given that Lance Stroll didn’t manage it on immediate pace from a similar position (albeit later benefitted from disqualifications).

Towards the end of that final stint, Hadjar’s pace is a bit all over the place; his battle with Jack Doohan being the main contributing factor. By rights, he should have passed the Australian given his car and tyre advantage, but ended up getting blocked and run out of road on a couple of occasions. It’s in those moments, and at the start, where Hadjar perhaps appears to lack that spark to make the pinch-points work for him. That’ll come in time, particularly as he gathers greater mental acuity as less of his bandwidth is being used to consciously drive the car, but these moments suggest that he doesn’t possess a completely natural feeling at the moment.

The final laps have been omitted from our graph as Hadjar’s aren’t comparable to Tsunoda; the latter’s broken wing had forced him to pit for a third time on lap 46 – and Racing Bulls decided to fit some old mediums for the final throes of the race in the event it could benefit from any force majeure. Hadjar did not have to endure that fate, but Doohan was holding him up.

In brief, Hadjar’s ‘proper’ debut was largely mistake-free, and should go some way to dispelling the languid slip into the wall on Australia’s formation lap. The gaps to Tsunoda will be an encouraging starting point, particularly as Tsunoda has been relatively keen to help Hadjar bed into the team. Of the key plus points, that confidence in the Racing Bulls package in qualifying will serve Hadjar well in circuits where the corner radiuses are longer; Melbourne seemed to be more of a struggle versus his team-mate, suggesting Tsunoda might be happier in more rear-limited conditions.

Hadjar has likely bought himself plenty of time to get acquainted with the rigours of managing race pace in F1, and having the latitude to make the right decisions in the moment on-track to carry out passes and maximise starts, pitstop entries, and the like. It’s all about the little details, after all. Yet, given expectations of Hadjar were probably quite low to begin the year with, he’s been pleasantly surprising thus far.