Friday at the Hungarian Grand Prix was useful for Isack Hadjar in one sense and frustrating in another. The 21-year-old opened the day with the fourth fastest time in FP1, just 0.922s behind Charles Leclerc, before slipping to P6 in FP2 as the balance became harder to manage in windier conditions.
That combination tells you a lot about where Red Bull stand right now. Hadjar was quick enough to suggest the car can still be competitive over a single lap, but not sharp enough to suggest they have the upper hand at the Hungaroring. His own verdict was blunt: Red Bull have plenty of catching up to do, and Ferrari are “always stronger”.
The second session sharpened that picture. Ferrari improved in the second hour of practice while Hadjar fell back in the order, and Pierre Wache was equally direct about the state of play. “We’re not where we should be or where we want to be,” he said, adding that the drivers were not happy with the car balance. He also pointed to the low Friday grip and the bumps that were “perturbing” the balance, which helps explain why the order shifted as the track evolved.
Hadjar did not sound alarmed about everything. “As soon as I’m in the car, it’s working okay,” he said, and his long run looked pretty good. But that is not the headline problem for Red Bull at this stage of the weekend. The issue is one-lap pace, and that is where the gap to Ferrari was most obvious. Wache went further, saying Ferrari have “the car to beat here” and that they were expected to have an advantage mainly on one-lap performance.
There was also a broader sense of the field settling into familiar shapes. Hadjar said he was waiting for Mercedes to wake up, while expecting things to stay close with the McLarens. In other words, Ferrari looked like the benchmark, Red Bull looked a step behind, and the rest of the front-runners were still waiting to show their hand.
That matters because Hadjar’s Friday is part of a broader pattern. At the Belgian Grand Prix, he started from P21 after a substantial grid penalty and still fought through to finish sixth, a reminder that race pace and recovery ability can mask a shaky starting position. The Hungarian Grand Prix may not demand the same kind of charge from the back, but it does appear to be asking a more basic question: can Red Bull find enough lap time overnight to stop Ferrari from controlling the weekend?
For now, the answer from Friday practice is no. Hadjar has given Red Bull a useful benchmark, but also a clear warning. The car is in the window in places, the long run looked encouraging, and the race picture is not lost. The one-lap deficit, though, is real — and at the Hungaroring, that is often where the weekend is won or left to drift away.
