Hard blow for Hadjar, penalized and deprived of victory

Clearly, this 2024 season is not yet that of Isack Hadjar. Unlucky since the start in Bahrain three weeks ago, the Campos driver thought he had finally got rid of the black cat this Saturday by winning the Sprint Race in Australia. Party 3rd, the protégé of Red Bull mastered his subject by dominating the test from start to finish.

But unfortunately, the joy of this first real victory in Formula 2 only lasted a few hours for the Habs. Summoned by race management after the collision at the start in which he was involved with his teammate Josep Maria Marti and Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta), Isack Hadjar was found guilty, thus receiving a 10-second penalty. A sanction which caused him to lose his success but above all to fall back to 6th place just ahead of Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix).

According to the official FIA document, “ the video shows that a few seconds after the start of the race, car 20 (Hadjar) moved sharply to the right to get ahead of the car in front of it (car 23, Stanek), without realizing that car 21 (Marti) had a large part of her car next to her. This movement caused car 21 to move slightly to the right to try to avoid it. As a result, car 21 came into contact with car 10 (Bortoleto). A second contact occurred between cars 20 and 21.

Stewards determined that car 20 was primarily responsible for the collision and decided to impose a 10-second penalty »

To this penalty, you must also add a deduction of two points from your license.

The official FIA document

ALSO READ > If he does not yet feel pressure, Victor Martins knows that a presence in F1 will depend on the F2 title