Isack Hadjar demands Red Bull make big RB22 change after first-of-its-kind experience in Barcelona

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Isack Hadjar has demanded that Red Bull now change their race start procedures after stalling twice in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix owing to a first-of-its-kind issue.

The 21-year-old continued his recent point-scoring streak with P6 in Spain last week. Yet an early problem meant Hadjar faced a recovery drive in the Barcelona-Catalunya GP, which he would not have finished with P6 without Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc retiring.

Hadjar plummeted down the order due to his poor start and finished the first lap in a bleak P14. A strong qualifying effort had seen Hadjar start the race from P6, after he only lapped 0.056 seconds slower than Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen during Q3 with a 1:15.077.

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Isack Hadjar blames Red Bull’s ‘complicated’ race start procedures for stalling in Barcelona

Even Carlos Sainz, who had started the Barcelona-Catalunya GP in P16, got in front of Hadjar on the first lap. He also lost places immediately to Oscar Piastri, Leclerc, Liam Lawson, Arvid Lindblad, Nico Hulkenberg, Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly due to a bad start last Sunday.

READ MORE: Who is 2026 Red Bull F1 driver Isack Hadjar? Everything you need to know

Hadjar believes Red Bull’s overly complicated start procedure was to blame for his bad start in the Barcelona-Catalunya GP, which Lewis Hamilton won for his first Ferrari victory. So, the Frenchman now wants Red Bull to modify their protocols, as he is not a flawless “machine”.

Hadjar said, via quotes by Formula Passion: “I think that, of the six practice starts we did all weekend, this was the worst, and it happened right on the grid. I stalled the engine twice, which has never happened to me all season.

“We need to fix these problems. The procedure is too complicated, and I’m not a computer. I’m not a machine. I can’t be 0.0001% accurate. It doesn’t work.”

Hadjar overcame his poor start to get his third successive point-scoring result with P6 in the Barcelona-Catalunya GP, following a P5 finish in Canada and a P4 finish in Monaco (that Red Bull hope will return to being P3 after appealing against Gasly’s penalty getting overturned).

The Parisian quickly dispatched Sainz, and dealt with Gasly in the opening laps with a great run around his compatriot’s outside through Turn 3. But it has to be taken into account that the Red Bull RB22 is far stronger than the cars that Hadjar had to re-pass after his bad start.

Also, while Hadjar has blamed his bad start in the Barcelona-Catalunya GP on Red Bull using very “complicated” procedures, Martin Brundle was quick to suggest that the 21-year-old’s launch was limited as he had a lot of wheelspin after watching his onboard footage in Spain.

“Too much wheelspin,” Brundle said on Sky Sports F1. “That’s what happened to him. It did not bog down, he just lit up the rear tyres.

“It’s really hard when you are out of sync with the pack at the start of any motor race, because it’s so easy to trip over people because they’re just running a different pace to you.”

Hadjar has never scored points in four successive Grands Prix, having twice scored points in three consecutive races for Racing Bulls as a rookie last year and now once with Red Bull. Next is also Red Bull’s home race, the Austrian Grand Prix, where Hadjar sealed P12 in 2025.