{"id":443187,"date":"2026-01-28T15:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/443187\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:34:11","slug":"why-hadjars-red-bull-testing-crash-doesnt-mean-a-gasly-2019-repeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/443187\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Hadjar’s Red Bull testing crash doesn\u2019t mean a Gasly 2019 repeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven years ago, Red Bull signed sophomore Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasly<\/a> as Max Verstappen<\/a>\u2019s new team-mate following the Frenchman\u2019s convincing rookie season, forgoing a more experienced option in Carlos Sainz<\/a> \u2013 but Gasly crashed twice at Barcelona in pre-season testing and was demoted to Toro Rosso after a nightmare first half of the season.<\/p>\n

Seven years later, Red Bull signed sophomore F1 driver Isack Hadjar<\/a> as Verstappen\u2019s new team-mate following the Frenchman\u2019s convincing rookie season, forgoing a more experienced option in Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> \u2013 but Hadjar crashed at Barcelona in pre-season testing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it, Hadjar\u2019s off on Tuesday was definitely not what Red Bull needed with a brand-new car amid F1\u2019s new-for-2026 technical regulations. The RB22 ended up in the wall at the last corner, fortunately at the end of the day \u2013 so not much actual track time was lost, but it may impact Red Bull\u2019s programme for the remainder of the week.<\/p>\n

Back in 2019, Gasly suffered not one but two crashes at the Catalan track. The first one occurred on the second day of testing \u2013 just like Hadjar\u2019s \u2013 as the youngster lost the rear end in the Turn 12 right-hander.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, you are pushing the car to the limits and playing with the limits,\u201d Gasly then explained. \u201cI went on throttle and lost the rear, and basically that was it. It caught me a bit by surprise and [there’s] not much you can do once it is done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine days later, in the second Barcelona test, Gasly lost control in the very fast Turn 9 curve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m fine, a bit shaken, but I made a mistake in Turn 9 and you guys saw what happened,\u201d he admitted. \u201cPretty big crash, one of the biggest crashes I had. Long night for the mechanics, sorry for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Isack <\/p>\n

Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

That second shunt was particularly impactful for Red Bull as the team had to revert to an older-spec bargeboard and Verstappen\u2019s mileage was consequently limited on the final day.<\/p>\n

These crashes likely helped set up Gasly for a horrendous 12 grands prix at Red Bull; the 23-year-old failed to match Verstappen, with 63 points to 181, or even to get a podium finish \u2013 hence his demotion back to Toro Rosso which, given how he bounced back, may have been a blessing in disguise.<\/p>\n

Will Hadjar follow the same path? The curse of Red Bull\u2019s second seat is well-documented by now; Alex Albon<\/a>, Sergio Perez<\/a>, Liam Lawson<\/a> and Tsunoda all struggled relative to Verstappen. But there has been hope that F1 2026\u2019s technical overhaul will somehow end the malediction as car characteristics evolve.<\/p>\n

Gasly clearly couldn\u2019t cope with the RB15\u2019s behaviour. His driving style was too aggressive for the car, he kept experimenting without finding the right set-up, and that\u2019s how he ended up being lapped by Verstappen in the Austrian Grand Prix, while his qualifying pace somehow got progressively worse relative to the Dutchman.<\/p>\n

But the Frenchman also perceived a lack of support from his team \u2013 \u201cnobody really stuck up for me\u201d \u2013 and he felt hampered by his race engineer Mike Lugg, who came from Formula E with no prior F1 experience.<\/p>\n

Lugg\u2019s move was planned as a reunion with fellow countryman Daniel Ricciardo<\/a>, as they won the British F3 title together at Carlin in 2009, but Ricciardo\u2019s shock move to Renault meant Gasly inherited his engineer.<\/p>\n

\"Pierre <\/p>\n

Pierre Gasly, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Zak Mauger \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

In the end, Lugg lasted just a year-and-a-half in the race engineer role at Red Bull, with Ricciardo\u2019s former engineer Simon Rennie switching back to a trackside role in mid-2020. Lugg left the team six months later and moved back to Formula E.<\/p>\n

These are just many reasons why Gasly\u2019s fate doesn\u2019t have to be Hadjar\u2019s. They may be drivers of the same age and nationality in the same situation at the same team, but many other circumstances are different.<\/p>\n

Back in 2019, the technical rules were stable, other than tweaks to front and rear wings to make overtaking easier. Hadjar\u2019s crash happened on a wet track with a brand-new car, even though he\u2019d driven it all day on Monday.<\/p>\n

His race engineer is Richard Wood, who was a performance engineer from 2021 to 2024 and acted as Perez\u2019 race engineer on occasion before moving into that role full-time with Lawson and Tsunoda.<\/p>\n

Red Bull\u2019s management has changed too. Gone are the ruthless Christian Horner and Helmut Marko; Laurent Mekies may not have much experience in the team principal role, which he held for 18 months at Racing Bulls<\/a> before replacing Horner at Red Bull last July, but he has been in motorsport for a long time and has already earned praise for his demeanour.<\/p>\n

Mekies\u2019 successor at Racing Bulls, Alan Permane, described him as \u201cexceptionally good with people\u201d and \u201cright up there with the best\u201d team principals he has worked with; the Frenchman also made a strong impression at Red Bull with his meticulous approach and extreme honesty, as he adamantly refused to take credit for the team\u2019s turnaround in form.<\/p>\n

\"Isack <\/p>\n

Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

After Hadjar crashed, Mekies was keen to play the accident down: \u201cLook, it was a very tricky condition this afternoon, so very unfortunate that it finished that way, but it’s part of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, he was always going to defend his driver \u2013 even Horner did seven years ago.<\/p>\n

Still, there is no reason Hadjar cannot succeed at Red Bull \u2013 and by \u2018succeed\u2019 we mean being close enough to Verstappen, not necessarily matching him. But he will need to avoid crashing again during pre-season testing, lest doubt starts to creep in\u2026<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seven years ago, Red Bull signed sophomore Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasly as Max Verstappen\u2019s new team-mate following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,195711,79010,817,813,816,10114,1513,946,85,230215],"class_list":["post-443187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barcelona-catalunya-pre-season-testing","tag-circuit-de-barcelona-catalunya","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-isack-hadjar","tag-pierre-gasly","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-why-hadjars-red-bull-testing-crash-doesnu2019t-mean-a-gasly-2019-repeat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}