The Red Bull man climbed a place in the championship standings in Austria

It was an eventful afternoon for Isack Hadjar as he came home sixth in Red Bull’s home race in Austria on Sunday.

The Frenchman was never far from the action during the race at the Red Bull Ring, starting eighth on the grid. After scrapping and swapping places with former team-mate Liam Lawson in the Racing Bulls early on, Hadjar jumped world champion Lando Norris at the first round of stops before getting embroiled with the Ferraris.

Initially having a to-do with Lewis Hamilton, it would be with Monegasque Charles Leclerc that Hadjar would get the better of after chasing the Ferrari man down.

Come the chequered flag, the trio of Hamilton, Hadjar and Norris were separated by less than five seconds.

“Starting from eighth, we had a very aggressive race,” he said afterwards. “I was running out of tyres at the end of my stints, so it was probably not the fastest race for me, but I still managed to gain two places.

“You could feel the upgrade in the race pace, and I think we had the second quickest car today so I was very happy with that.

“I still need to feel more comfortable in the car to extract the most from it, but it is the best race car we’ve had so far, and it is delivering. I think on a cooler track, hopefully next week, we can be a bit more competitive again.”

The result sees Hadjar move up to eighth in the championship standings, leaping Pierre Gasly, 31 points adrift of team-mate Max Verstappen in seventh.