Hadjar feeling confident ahead of Spielberg Qualifying after ‘promising’ Free Practice

Isack Hadjar made a strong start to his Spielberg weekend by going fastest of all in the opening 45 minutes of running, giving the Campos Racing driver some confidence heading into Qualifying.

The Frenchman completed a lap of 1:16.441 to lead the way ahead of Championship rival Paul Aron, Hajdar over two-tenths clear ahead of the Hitech Pulse-Eight driver.

Speaking after Practice, Hadjar was pleased with his work in a session that was briefly halted by a Red Flag caused by AIX Racing’s Taylor Barnard stopping on track.

PRACTICE: Hadjar sets early pace in Spielberg for Campos Racing

“It was a clean session, except for the Red Flag but it didn't really impede our plan,” reflected Hadjar. “Already on the first lap I felt confident, the car was responding well and after the Red Flag I could learn without the tow on a normal track.

“I was improving, the car felt okay, and I went quickest, but it was a tight field so there's a lot of work to do for quali.”

The Red Bull Junior Team driver heads into Qualifying off the back of a weekend in Barcelona in which he qualified outside of the top 10 for the first time this season.

He sees Spielberg as a “new chance” hoping to not repeat the same mistakes that cost him in Round 6, and his confidence is quite high given the performance he is getting out of his car.

“From my side it’s promising,” acknowledged Hadjar. “Red Bull Ring is a track where Free Practice is pretty close laptime-wise to Qualifying, so there is not going to be a huge jump. I believe I'm going to have a good car again in quali.”

There will be a couple of challenges for Hadjar and Campos, one being their place in the pitlane and the other being the supervising of track limits with new gravel traps having been placed at Turns 8 and 9.

READ MORE: Martí disqualified from Spielberg Free Practice

However, the latter is not as concerning to Hadjar as it might be to others.

“It's been really good, much better,” said Hadjar of the new the changes made to the circuit. “I don't really think about track limits, I just think about staying on track, so it's much better, I guess. If you're over track limits, it means you're off the track, so it's pretty good.”

On being last in the pitlane, Hadjar added: “In our case being last in the pits because of track position and warm-up we are going to be at the back of queue. I think that's the most challenging part for us to manage. If we get through that then I am confident.”