What happened: Comfortable with his RB22 during opening practice at Circuit of the Americas, Hadjar altered his setup for the afternoon session and watched his qualifying simulation unravel on soft tires. Rapid front-end overheating through the high-speed Esses left him slower from Sector 2 to the finish than on medium compounds, prompting the Frenchman to call the car undriveable. Across the Red Bull garage, Verstappen reported a solid baseline that required only fine-tuning between high-speed and low-speed corners.

Why it matters: Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache noted that cooking the front tires through Austin's opening-sector Esses ruins the rest of the lap, while also identifying slower corners as a team-wide priority. With Hadjar signed to his Red Bull seat through 2027, matching Verstappen's cornering speeds without spiking tire temperatures is critical to closing the intra-team gap.

What to watch: Hadjar and his crew plan to roll back the setup changes ahead of Saturday's final practice before parc ferme conditions lock in configurations at the start of qualifying.