Red Bull was forced to reconsider its preseason testing schedule at Barcelona¡¯s Circuit de Catalunya after new recruit Isack Hadjar crashed in wet conditions on Tuesday.
The 21-year-old Frenchman, promoted from Racing Bulls, lost control at the ?final corner in the afternoon and spun backward into the barriers during ?a session ?being held behind closed doors.
Team principal Laurent Mekies said the ?team was assessing the damage before deciding its plans for the rest of the week.
Red Bull, now making its own engine, has used two of its three days and could delay running again until Friday 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 Monday¡¯s dry running as ¡°pretty productive,¡± after completing numerous laps in the RB22 chassis.
The five-day shakedown will be followed by two preseason 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 Tuesday due to the weather forecast.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton said it had been a very challenging day, with the rain ?coming ?at around 10:30 a.m., 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, who has yet to drive the car in the dry. ¡°There were no major issues ... we just need to get some more days like this.¡±
The ?2026 season marks the start of a new engine era with an overhaul of the technical regulations.
World champion McLaren postponed its track debut until Wednesday due to the weather and will now participate in the final three days of testing.
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