We have investigated the hydrodynamic response of plastic and aluminum foils accelerated by a pulse formed by an x‐ray prepulse followed by the main laser pulse. This illumination scheme, so‐called indirect‐direct drive scheme, has been proposed as an alternative to the direct and indirect drive. The advantages of such a scheme are that it can contribute to solve the problem of uniformity of the direct drive and, at the same time, it can be much more efficient and use simpler targets than the indirect‐drive. Experiments about this hybrid drive scheme have been performed at Limeil with the PHEBUS facility and the standard experimental set‐up and diagnostics. The agreement between experiments and simulations is good for quantities such as the energy of the laser converted into x‐rays and the burnthrough time of the converter foil. To simulate the full hydrodynamic evolution of the converter and target foils separated a distance of 1 mm, 2‐D effects should be taken into account. The basic goals have been to check the simulation codes developed by the Institute of Nuclear Fusion and to determine the hydrodynamic response of the target foil to the hybrid pulse. These goals have been fulfilled. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.