Isack Hadjar is already facing an uphill battle at the Circuit of the Americas after Friday practice didn't go to plan for the Red Bull Racing driver. Whilst his team-mate Max Verstappen was comfortably in the mix at the top, finishing second in the first session and third in the second, Hadjar found himself fighting the car all day long. The 22-year-old struggled significantly off the pace, ending up 14th in FP1 and ninth in FP2, with gaps to the leaders that left him visibly frustrated.

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The main culprit appears to be the setup changes Red Bull made between the two sessions. Hadjar was reasonably content after the opening practice run, but when the team tweaked things ahead of FP2, everything fell apart on the soft tyres. He complained that the car became very difficult to drive, and he couldn't find a rhythm to push for competitive lap times. The gap to team-mate Verstappen grew to over 1.6 seconds at one point, which is a massive chunk of time in Formula 1 and a clear sign something wasn't working.

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After stepping out of the car, Hadjar didn't mince words about the direction things are heading. He admitted the changes that were supposed to improve performance actually made things worse, calling it a huge step backwards and admitting he couldn't understand why the adjustments went so wrong. However, he remains optimistic that the team can find solutions before qualifying, emphasizing that Fridays are for experimentation and finding the right setup path forward.

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With several more hours to work on the RB21, Red Bull will be hoping they can sort out whatever's gone wrong and get Hadjar back into competitive shape. For now though, it's been a rough start to the weekend for the Frenchman, and there's plenty of work to do if he wants to challenge up front at Austin.

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