During second free practice at the Albert Park Circuit ahead of the 2026 F1 Australian GP, Red Bull driver Max Verstappen managed to finish 6th after taking 13 laps, while teammate Isack Hadjar took 9th with 28 laps.
Verstappen struggled with many issues during FP2 at the 2026 F1 Australian GP
After finishing third in FP1, the Dutch driver faced various issues and had limited running during the second session. Because of a sudden stop in the pit lane, car number 3 spent most of the session inside the pits, and only managed to head out with 30 minutes remaining on the clock. On top of that, he had a big run through the gravel following a snap in turn 10, damaging his car.
Verstappen managed a time of 1:20.366, placing him +0.637 seconds from the fastest lap done by Piastri in his McLaren.
Afterwards, he said, “We are working on getting the set-up right with the car and were struggling a bit with grip and also went into the gravel.”
However, he stated that pace wise, even without a day of clear running, the RB22 is where they expected it to be.
Gianpiero Lambiase insists the team will take care of things operationally to avoid any “slip ups” going into qualifying and the race. Verstappen agrees: “There is still a lot of work to do and we will analyse what worked and what we can improve on overnight and that is the reality at the moment.”
Hadjar still optimistic with Red Bull’s chances for the 2026 Australian GP
On the other side of the garage, the younger driver, Isack Hadjar, finished 9th with a lap time of 1:20.941, +1.212 seconds from P1. With 28 laps, he was one of the drivers that gathered big mileage on track.
After the session, the Red Bull debutantalso pointed out some issues regarding consistency and the car balance, the main one being the inconsistency in the deployment.
Although reliability was good, in terms of consistency, the Frenchman struggled on every lap in FP2 at the Albert Park Circuit. “I had to adapt to my braking points and it was just very messy,” he explained. “You’re never arriving at the same speed, the dynamic of the car changes as well, so it’s very tricky.”.
With the changes introduced in the 2026 season, Isack Hadjar felt that there was not enough practice going into qualifying, that there were still many unknowns, and that he wished he had more laps to get a better sense of the power unit.
Nonetheless, he stated he was still optimistic and comfortable with the car and that the issues were to be expected on the first day.
“As long as we know why and we don’t make the same mistake again then we’ll be fine,” he concluded.
Lambiase agreed they needed to review the data regarding car 6’s mechanical set-up changes during the session to settle on the best course of action for Saturday and Sunday for the 2026 F1 Australian GP.
