Hadjar slams Red Bull's start procedure after losing eight places off the line in Barcelona

Isack Hadjar has publicly called out Red Bull’s start procedure after a disastrous launch at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona left him losing eight positions off the line, dropping from sixth to 14th before recovering to finish sixth.

The rookie Frenchman described the getaway as a “nightmare” and argued that Red Bull’s current system demands a level of precision that is simply unrealistic for any driver to deliver consistently under race conditions. “The procedure is way too complicated,” Hadjar said in the media pen after the race. “I’m not a computer, I’m not a machine, I can’t be 0.0001% precise. It’s not working.”

The problem is not new. Both Hadjar and four-time world champion Max Verstappen have suffered inconsistent launches throughout the 2025 season, regularly surrendering positions before the first corner. Hadjar was blunt about the urgency: “We just need to work on our starts, because it’s just not possible to keep going like that. Every race weekend it’s the same story.”

He added that out of six practice starts across the Barcelona weekend, the one that mattered most was his worst — including two stalls he said he had not experienced at any point previously this season.

The frustration is compounded by the fact that rival teams have visibly moved on from similar difficulties. Mercedes struggled badly in the opening rounds, with Kimi Antonelli among the most frequent losers off the line, but the team appears to have resolved the issue, with the Italian producing clean starts across the past three race weekends.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies acknowledged the problem, linking it to the challenge of finding the optimum operating window for the team’s new power unit — effectively validating Hadjar’s complaint that the window is too narrow to execute reliably. Mekies framed it as part of the team’s learning process with the updated machinery, though that explanation is unlikely to satisfy a driver who has now watched rivals find solutions while Red Bull continues to haemorrhage grid positions at the start of races.

Hadjar’s recovery drive in Barcelona — climbing back from 14th to sixth — demonstrated his pace once the car was actually moving. The concern for Red Bull is that, until the start procedure is simplified or the operating window widened, that pace risks being squandered before the first corner every fortnight.