Lawson tips Hadjar for Red Bull 2026 as Marko slows the roll
Red Bull’s second seat for 2026 should be a done deal by now. It isn’t, of course. In classic Red Bull fashion, the soft-shoe dance continues, and the paddock keeps peering through the fog. What’s different this time is who’s doing the talking: Liam Lawson — one of the men in the frame — is openly saying the other guy’s ready.
“He’s done a very good job this year,” Lawson said of Isack Hadjar during the Monza weekend. “To have a podium this season is pretty spectacular. He’s doing a really great job… As a driver, he’s ready.”
That’s not the usual sharp-elbowed candidate pitch. It’s a nod from inside the same garage. Lawson and Hadjar have spent the bulk of 2025 shoulder to shoulder at Racing Bulls, splitting set-up paths and stress tests in a car that’s blown hot and cold. Lawson’s year crackled early, then levelled. He started the season thrown into the deep end at Red Bull Racing — promoted ahead of Yuki Tsunoda after only 11 prior grands prix with the junior team — before being shuffled back to VCARB after two tricky weekends when the RB21 didn’t come to him. Reboot complete, he’s since rebuilt his season, banking 20 points.
Hadjar, though, has stolen the headlines. The 20-year-old’s logged seven points finishes in 16 starts and stuck it on the podium at Zandvoort, only two seconds adrift of Max Verstappen at the flag. You don’t luck into that kind of Sunday.
No surprise, then, that the rookie’s the quiet favourite to partner Verstappen in 2026. But if there’s one constant with Red Bull, it’s that they never rush a driver call they don’t have to.
“We’ve extended the options, or rather, the drivers have extended them with us,” Helmut Marko told Sky Deutschland after Hadjar’s Zandvoort podium. “Around September or October, we want to have a few more races to observe, and then we’ll make the decisions.”
That timeline keeps everyone guessing through the tail end of the European swing and into the flyaways. It also leaves Tsunoda, still in the conversation for the 2026 seat, with a narrow window to change minds. The Japanese driver has had a rough run by Red Bull standards: 14 races with the senior team, nine points to show for it, and an eight-race scoreless streak wedged in the middle. He sits P19 in the standings, while Verstappen is doing Verstappen things near the sharp end.
Lawson, asked to weigh in on Tsunoda’s form, didn’t bite. “It’s hard to compare, because I had two races, and he’s been given quite a stretch of races. So it’s hard for me to compare.”
The broader picture is messier than a simple call between form and experience. The 2026 regulations reset looms large; how a driver works around a moving target matters at Red Bull, arguably as much as raw lap time. Verstappen’s side will chase titles regardless. The second car must balance development workload, tyre empathy on Sundays, and the ability to live in that car’s peculiar window — without flicking the team into a PR firestorm if Q3 goes sideways.
Hadjar has momentum and the kind of composure under pressure that makes engineers breathe easier. Lawson brings a thicker bank of F1 miles than the rookie and a reputation for clean weekends when the car’s underneath him. Both have earned the conversation. Tsunoda, still the highest-mileage option inside Red Bull’s sphere, remains the wildcard if the team values continuity as it rolls into a new ruleset.
For Lawson, the politics can wait. “Honestly, it’s not really something I think about,” he said. “It’s more for me just maximising every weekend. We have eight more this year and a lot can happen. For me, it’s about securing a place in Formula 1.”
Translation: keep scoring, keep the phone ringing. Whether that ends with a blue race suit alongside Verstappen or another year headlining VCARB, he’s making the most pragmatic play in the book — let the laptimes talk while Red Bull does Red Bull things.
And they will. Expect the call to land on the timeline Marko laid out: not so early that momentum can swing, not so late that contract lawyers miss their holidays. If the team leans into form, Hadjar’s in the box seat. If they want battle-scars and a known quantity for the first laps of 2026, Lawson’s still very much alive. If they zig where everyone expects them to zag, well, you’ve watched this team long enough to know how that goes.
The only certainty? The second Red Bull seat is never just a seat. It’s a stress test. And right now, two young drivers are handling it rather well.
