Red Bull looks set for another Formula 1 line-up shuffle in 2026 with one driver set to be spat out into an ever-tightening market.
Max Verstappen is locked into Red Bull for 2026, but the other three F1 drivers within Red Bull’s stable could all move around - or get squeezed out.
The race to be Verstappen’s 2026 team-mate is a straight fight between struggling incumbent Yuki Tsunoda and high-flying rookie Isack Hadjar.
Hadjar is the clear favourite. Everything is pointing towards him getting the nod, with no reservations from his side at least about the switch being too soon - in fact, he thinks stepping up to Red Bull to coincide with the new regulations and consequent change of car characteristics will be “way easier” than the likes of Tsunoda or Liam Lawson found their moves.
And Tsunoda’s tally of nine points in 14 grands prix is unavoidably woeful so, unless there’s a stark and sudden turnaround, a change will only become inevitable.
A report from German outlet Auto, Motor und Sport suggested Hadjar replacing Tsunoda for 2026 was a done deal after Monza.
The Race put this to Hadjar in Baku, asking if he knew which team he’d be driving for in 2026: “No, I have an idea but I don’t know” was Hadjar’s reply.
Helmut Marko said Red Bull won’t properly decide its 2026 line-ups until next month’s Mexican Grand Prix, but given that’s only four races away, the race to be Verstappen’s team-mate is only trending one way.
So too is the prospect of Formula 2 driver Arvid Lindblad being promoted into Racing Bulls, with 2026 the ideal time to plug a rookie in, given it’s new cars for everyone.
But if Hadjar and Lindblad get promotions, what does that mean for Tsunoda and Hadjar’s current Racing Bulls team-mate Lawson?
Where Tsunoda stands
As we’ve already detailed after Monza, Tsunoda has a unique problem among the roster of bruised Verstappen team-mates - his deficit is at its worst on Sundays, not Saturdays.
Points are (mostly) scored on Sunday, so it’s a harder sin to forgive than the periods where Sergio Perez would be well off Verstappen in qualifying, but recover strongly in the races.
What’s most worrying for Tsunoda is that there isn’t a clear answer to his long run pace struggles.
“Just probably long-run [pace], especially for now, is what I have to focus [on],” Tsunoda said in Baku.
“We also have worked hard to understand what's kind of the main issue causing the long-run pace…the things that we experience are things that even the team can't really explain. So that's the main thing. That's what we are struggling at.”
Tsunoda insists he’s “not really thinking much about the future” as “every race is crucial at this moment”.
Red Bull could place Tsunoda back in the junior team as it did with Lawson and Pierre Gasly before him.
“The only things I'm thinking about is just staying at Red Bull next year, so I'm not really thinking about a possible situation when I'm going back to Racing Bulls or whatever,” Tsunoda said.
“But yeah, if that would be something I'll think about that when that things happened. It's a team that I was staying there for four long years and I know the people, but at the same time, I moved on already to a new chapter.”
Tsunoda effectively became Racing Bulls’ team leader across 2023-24, scoring 66% of the team’s points during that time and even doing enough to ensure the end of the road for both Nyck de Vries and Daniel Ricciardo.
So Tsunoda would still be a valuable asset but much like Lawson, it would be hard to see how he could ever return to the senior team afterwards.
Plus, his primary backer Honda, which was instrumental in Tsunoda getting the promotion in the first place, is leaving Red Bull for Aston Martin at the end of the year.
The only potential vacant non-Red Bull 2026 seat even remotely open to Tsunoda would be the second Alpine seat alongside Pierre Gasly.
That’s the seat Lawson will also have to look at, should he be made to make way for a Tsunoda-Lindblad pairing at Racing Bulls.
Lawson's realisation
Having achieved his two F1 dreams in quick succession - racing in F1 and (briefly) racing for Red Bull Racing - Lawson has now realised his future within F1 may lie outside of Red Bull.
“I spent a long time, especially joining as a junior when I was 17, I was just looking at ‘how do I get to Red Bull Racing?’” Lawson explained.
“And that was just where I saw my future, I think maybe, not that I forgot, but that was so much of the goal, that it’s easier to step back and realise now the goal has always been winning and getting to the top, and it doesn’t need to be specific to where that is.”
Lawson says his 2026 scenario is “mostly talks with Red Bull and trying to secure a seat where I’m at the moment,” but you didn’t have to read too far between the lines that he’s thought about other options.
An Alpine seat would be the obvious carrot to chase should he be the driver left without a Red Bull-backed seat when the music stops.
It would become a direct fight between incumbent Franco Colapinto and whichever driver Red Bull discards - perhaps with a wildcard like FP1 regular Paul Aron in the mix too. Flavio Briatore may be tempted to wait to see which Red Bull driver is axed, given that it could be some handy added pressure for Colapinto, who has no alternative to Alpine.
Colapinto’s form has improved; he nearly scored points at Zandvoort and has compared strongly to team-mate Gasly in the last few weekends.
So it’s not quite as open a seat as it looked before F1’s summer break, when Colapinto was struggling to show the kind of speed he started with at Williams.
But Lawson too, has had a strong turnaround, with four top eight finishes, he appears to be a dependable midfield points scorer.
Whether that’s enough to convince Red Bull that he’s not the driver to cut or enough to tempt Briatore into another driver switch remains to be seen - but for now, it still seems more in the balance than Hadjar and Lindblad’s ever-strengthening chance of promotions.
