(Motorsport-Total.com) – Isack Hadjar faces disqualification from the qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver had secured 9th place in the Q3 results on Saturday with a gap of 0.991 seconds, but then failed the subsequent technical inspection. FIA chief inspector Jo Bauer reported the issue to the race stewards, who are expected to exclude Hadjar from the classification after a hearing on Sunday at 1:00 PM German time.
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Update 1:45 PM: As expected, Hadjar was disqualified due to the violation. All times from qualifying are annulled, and the Red Bull driver must start the race from the back of the field. “We made a mistake and respect the decision of the race stewards,” said team principal Laurent Mekies in an initial statement.
“No performance advantage was intended or gained through this error. We will learn from this incident and evaluate our processes to understand how it happened and to take steps to ensure it does not happen again. As a team, we apologize to Isack as well as to our fans and partners. We had to learn the hard way today, but we will look forward. Our focus now is to convert yesterday’s encouraging performance into a strong race result this afternoon.”
The RB22 was found to have illegal dimensions of the so-called underfloor board. This is the underfloor structure located in front of the sidepods. Bauer therefore reported a violation of Article 3.5.5 (“Floor Bib”) of the regulations on Saturday evening.
It was only two millimeters …
The article concerns a small but aerodynamically crucial area on the underfloor of a Formula 1 car, the so-called “Floor Bib.” This component in the front underfloor area is subject to strict geometric requirements: it must lie entirely within a precisely defined reference volume and must neither protrude beyond it nor create additional aerodynamic advantages through complex shapes. Furthermore, the regulations require that the surface of the component only have smooth curves—sharp edges or strongly curved surfaces are explicitly prohibited.
The background of these detailed regulations lies in the central importance of the underfloor for the aerodynamics of modern Formula 1 cars. Even minimal deviations can bring measurable performance gains, which is why the FIA controls this area very precisely. In Hadjar’s case, an exceedance of the allowed area by only two millimeters was enough to classify the car as non-compliant. A typical example of how uncompromising the rules are applied in this sensitive area.
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Hadjar is therefore expected to lose his ninth starting position for the race on Sunday and instead have to start from the pit lane. The rookie was thus unable to capitalize on Red Bull’s upward trend after the team brought a comprehensive aerodynamic update to Miami. His teammate Max Verstappen qualified alongside polesitter Kimi Antonelli on the front row.
What Hadjar says about Miami Saturday
“After qualifying, I was a bit frustrated with my own performance because I didn’t manage to put together the laps I had planned in the crucial final runs. There was definitely more lap time to be gained,” Hadjar said before the rule violation became known. “I had performance problems on the straights, which made it difficult to bring everything together. The positive thing is that we made a big step and are much better positioned before the race.”
In the F1 sprint on Saturday morning, Hadjar finished ninth and thus missed the points: “In the sprint, the car improved significantly compared to yesterday, which was also evident in Max’s performance. The start was frustrating, but I was able to recover well and felt good in the car. The overtaking maneuver against Franco was the highlight of the sprint for me.”
The start of the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday was moved forward from 4:00 PM to 1:00 PM local time due to threatening thunderstorms. For Formula 1 fans in Germany, this means the race starts at 7:00 PM CEST. (Here’s the link to the Formula 1 live ticker!)
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