Racing Bulls CEO Peter Bayer has revealed when he learned of Isack Hadjar's injury, which forced him out of the 2026 Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix. Hadjar, who has impressed for the Milton-Keynes-based outfit so far this season, was in attendance but not in the RB22 at Zandvoort last weekend.
The 21-year-old sustained a wrist injury during training in F1's summer break, ruling him out of the Dutch GP. Liam Lawson was called up from sister team Racing Bulls to cover for the French-Algerian racing driver.
Naturally, with Lawson at Red Bull, the Faenza-based team had to make their own arrangements for the weekend and decided to strap Yuki Tsunoda back into an F1 car. Bayer revealed that he was only made aware of Hadjar's situation a week prior to the race weekend.
“It was late last week when I learned about the injury,” he said. “Then, obviously, the phone started ringing, a couple of phone calls, and then Tuesday the decision was taken on how we will go into this weekend. In terms of changes, honestly, I think as much as we do not like these things to happen, once it happens, we know what to do. You follow sort of the 'check book', I guess.”
Bayer detailed how, upon learning of Hadjar's fate, the team got ready to make Tsunoda's transition as smooth as possible given the Japanese racing driver had never driven the current generation of cars. “The biggest change really was for Yuki's travel plans, to get him back from Greece and into the simulator, to give him the biggest support we can,” he explained.
Max Verstappen wasn't privy to Hadjar's situation as quickly as the likes of Bayer. The Dutchman revealed that he was only informed of Hadjar's injury on Tuesday. “I also got the news only on Tuesday,” Verstappen confirmed. That said, he “hopes” that Hadjar can jump back into the RB22 alongside him soon. “I hope, of course, that he can recover quickly with the rest,” he added.
As for his team-mate for the weekend, Lawson, Verstappen described how tricky the weekend could get for the Kiwi driver given it would only feature a single practice session. “And for Liam to jump in, it doesn't help that it's a sprint weekend, but I saw him quickly at the simulator as well, so I hope that he got all the preparation that was possible in and that it's going to be, let's say, hopefully a more straightforward weekend,” concluded the Red Bull driver.
Lawson drove a stellar race, however, finishing seventh as the solitary RB22 on track after Verstappen agonisingly crashed out of his final home race. Hadjar's injury is a significant blow for Racing Bulls, as they lose one of their rising young drivers amid a competitive second half of the season.
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