Hadjar crashes new Red Bull in F1 testing

Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar crashed his car in wet conditions on the second day of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Barcelona.

The 21-year-old Frenchman, promoted to the senior Red Bull team for 2026 after just one season in F1, lost control at the fast final corner and hit the barriers.

The test is being held in private with no access for independent media, and Red Bull have not responded to requests for comment on the incident.

But eyewitnesses at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya say Hadjar was on his first lap on a set of intermediate tyres having just switched from full wet tyres.

The track was still damp and the weather was drizzly when he went off, spinning and hitting the barrier backwards.

Team principal Laurent Mekies said: “It was very tricky conditions this afternoon, so very unfortunate that it finished that way, but it’s part of the game.

“These difficulties came after a very, very positive day yesterday in terms of the number of laps Isack could complete in the car, and in terms of his learning and development and feedback to the engineers.

“We will try our best to repair the car and see what’s coming next.”

Until then, Red Bull had continued their encouraging progress of the first day, and Max Verstappen had had his first run in the car in the morning session.

The four-time champion had an off at Turn Five on his first lap out of the pits but was able to rejoin.

Red Bull have only one further day of running permitted to them under the rules of the test, having been out on track on both days so far.

The weather forecast meant only Red Bull and Ferrari ran on Tuesday – teams are limited to three of the five days this week.

World champions McLaren, who last week said they would first run their new car on either Tuesday or Wednesday, were not ready to run until late in the morning session and decided because of the weather to wait to run until Wednesday. They will now take part in each of the final three days of the test.

For Ferrari, Charles Leclerc drove in the morning and Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon, doing a total of 123 laps – just short of two grand prix distances – between them.

Hamilton only experienced the car in the wet and said it had been a “very challenging” but “really productive” day.

F1 has introduced revised rules for chassis, engines, tyres and fuel this season that means the cars are completely new, and a much bigger role for the hybrid part of the engine will make energy management a major factor in F1 this season.

Seven-time champion Hamilton added: “Such a major regulation change, so to get through the day with no major issues is great. We just need to try and get some more days like this.”

Asked for his aims over the remainder of the test, Hamilton said: “Hoping to experience the car in the dry and understanding balance. Just understanding the deployment. That is going to be crucial, how to utilise the power, the battery through the lap and recharging it and all that kind of stuff.

“We have all done a lot of work in the simulator, but we still need to go through the data and understand it.”

Leclerc said: “It’s not been the best conditions because it was a bit rainy, but we did our programme because we are not focusing on performance.”

But Monaco native Leclerc said it was “very early” to comment on the car’s behaviour.

“We haven’t pushed any bit of the car just yet. It was all about doing a proper system check on track,” he said.

“We will know a bit more, the more we do mileage. The first feeling is it is going to be a bit more of a challenge for us drivers to manage those things, and then let’s see if it’s going to make things more exciting.

“For now, we have gone through the very first preliminary checks of the car, everything went properly and we will go through our checklist of the first systems to then eventually what matters most, which is performance.

“But this will come probably a bit later in these three days and then trying to understand first how everything behaves.”

Ferrari had a poor season in 2025, with both Leclerc and Hamilton failing to win a grand prix, and have hopes the new rules will enable them to be more competitive.

Leclerc said: “I am very excited to see what the others have in store and when we start pushing a bit more to see where we are compared to the others.

“This year is a big opportunity for every team to do something different and maybe gain bigger advantage. I hope we are the team that will manage to make the difference, but wherever we start we will push at the maximum to try to bring Ferrari back to the top.”