Nikola Tsolov’s season has started to take on that familiar Red Bull shape: win early, win often, and suddenly the conversation shifts from “promising junior” to “when, not if”.
By the time Formula 2 arrived at Spa, the 19-year-old Bulgarian had already done the sort of damage that turns a championship into a chase. Six wins, a Silverstone weekend where he simply cleared the table with a sprint/feature double, and a 27-point cushion at the top of the standings as the series hit its halfway mark. It’s not just the points lead that’s loud; it’s the manner of it. He’s looking like a driver who’s stopped auditioning and started dictating.
In the paddock, Racing Bulls boss Alan Permane didn’t exactly try to cool things down when asked about Tsolov’s prospects. If anything, he leaned into the inevitability of it.
“He’s doing incredibly well,” Permane said at Spa. “He’s now leading the championship after his great weekend at Silverstone, so to say he’s on the radar would be a little bit of an understatement.
“He’s next in line, I think it’s fair to say. When that’ll be, I don’t know, honestly… it’s not an untruth to say we’re not thinking about him at the moment.”
That’s classic Red Bull double-speak — the kind that keeps options open while quietly letting the rest of the grid know the conveyor belt is moving again. “Not thinking about him,” followed by “next in line,” isn’t contradictory in that world; it’s just the organisation doing what it does best, which is applying pressure without publicly naming a deadline.
There is, however, a practical hurdle still sitting between Tsolov and a grand prix start: the FIA Super Licence. As it stands, he’s below the 40-point threshold required to race in Formula 1. But the maths is hardly prohibitive. A top-five finish in the F2 standings would get him over the line, and even if that gets messy, there are other junior-ladder routes available to make up the shortfall. In other words, if Red Bull really wants him in the car, it’s difficult to imagine the paperwork being the thing that stops it.
What makes the moment more interesting is that Racing Bulls isn’t exactly short of drivers making a case for themselves. Liam Lawson, after what’s described as a shock early demotion from Red Bull last year, has found his feet again and looks back to being the sharp, opportunistic racer the system originally promoted. Alongside him, Arvid Lindblad has settled into F1 life quickly, and their on-track proximity has been more than theoretical — including a particularly spicy moment at Spa, where they emerged from the pit lane almost side-by-side, Lindblad holding firm through Les Combes.
That’s the awkward bit for Racing Bulls, and it’s also the point: the team exists to create this problem. It’s there to build drivers up to the point where they become difficult to ignore — and to deliver Red Bull Racing credible solutions when it wants to move.
Permane was blunt about that brief when the discussion turned to 2027 and beyond.
“That’s the goal of both our guys for sure, and the goal of mine and our team is to develop drivers for that team [Red Bull],” he said. “I think going into specifics is far more a question for Laurent [Mekies], but I think we need to put them both in a position that they’re ready to do that, and if and when Laurent needs another driver, he’s got one or two to choose from.”
That last line is the tell. “One or two” is generous, because Tsolov now has to be counted in that group too — not as a long-term project, but as someone who may soon be too successful in F2 to keep parked there. Red Bull has always preferred its juniors to force the issue, to make staying put feel like a waste of momentum. Tsolov is doing exactly that.
It also adds a little extra edge to the internal dynamic at Racing Bulls. Lawson and Lindblad are racing each other, yes, but they’re also racing the calendar. Every strong weekend is an argument for stability; every mistake is oxygen for the next name on the list. And now Permane has effectively confirmed there *is* a next name, and it’s the one currently running away with F2.
For Tsolov, the task is clear: keep converting, keep the title bid clean, and make sure the Super Licence equation looks inevitable rather than hypothetical. For Racing Bulls, the task is harder — because if you’re a team built to supply Red Bull, you can’t just ask for patience. You have to decide who gets the next seat before the next seat decides you.
