Isack Hadjar crashes Red Bull car in Barcelona pre-season testing

BARCELONA – Red Bull were forced to reconsider their pre-season testing schedule at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya after new recruit Isack Hadjar crashed in wet conditions on Jan 27.

The 21-year-old Frenchman, promoted from Racing Bulls, lost control at the final corner in the afternoon and spun backwards into the barriers during a session being held behind closed doors.

Team principal Laurent Mekies said that the team were assessing the damage before deciding their plans for the rest of the week.

Red Bull, now making their own engine, have used two of their three days and could delay running again until Jan 30 if necessary.

"What is important is that Isack is okay and we'll try our best to repair the car and to see what's coming next," Mekies said in comments to the governing FIA.

"The priority right now... is to assess the damage on the car, to see what it gives to us in terms of opportunities to run in the next days.

"We only have one day (available) left, so we have to make sure we play that card carefully and it's an analysis that will take still a few hours.”

The incident came after Hadjar described the Jan 26 dry running as "pretty productive", after completing numerous laps in the RB22 chassis.

The five-day shakedown will be followed by two pre-season tests, open to the media, in Bahrain in February.

Only Red Bull, with four-time world champion Max Verstappen testing in the morning, and Ferrari ran on Jan 27 due to the weather forecast. 

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton said that it had been a very challenging day, with the rain coming at around 10.30am, but still very productive with around 120 laps on the board straight away for Ferrari.

"We got a lot of information from the car today, we definitely need to keep it up," said the Briton. "There were no major issues... we just need to get some more days like this."

Ferrari first took to the track with Charles Leclerc, who racked up 64 laps despite the rain, before handing over the wheel to Hamilton, who put in a sturdy 57-lap stint.

“For now it’s all about trying to understand if everything is working properly, which it kind of did,” Leclerc said.

“It’s not the best conditions because it has been a little bit raining... but actually we did our programme anyway because we are not focused on performance whatsoever.”

The 2026 season marks the start of a new engine era with an overhaul of the technical regulations. 

World champions McLaren postponed their track debut until Jan 28 due to the weather and will now participate in the final three days of testing. REUTERS, AFP