Red Bull’s youth squeeze: Schumacher says Tsunoda and Lawson still on the bubble for 2026
Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson delivered their best weekend of the season in Baku — and might still be driving straight out of Red Bull’s plans for 2026. That’s the blunt read from Ralf Schumacher, who believes the senior team and junior squad are lining up a fresh reset that could leave both men without a chair when the music stops.
The pair swapped seats after China, Lawson dropping into Racing Bulls while Tsunoda stepped up to Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen. In Azerbaijan, both finally showed some teeth. Lawson stuck his car third on the grid and turned it into a career-best fifth, stonewalling a train that included Tsunoda, Lando Norris and both Ferraris. Tsunoda, on much fresher mediums versus Lawson’s ageing hards and with DRS to boot, couldn’t crack the door — but still banked P6, his best result in Red Bull colours.
It felt like a corner turned. Schumacher isn’t so sure.
“Before Baku, I would’ve said both Tsunoda and Lawson were out,” he said on the Backstage Pit Lane podcast, arguing that even with a strong Sunday, the problem is less about form and more about Red Bull’s conveyor belt. The Austrian system looks primed to promote Isack Hadjar to the senior team with Verstappen for 2026, while F2 livewire Arvid Lindblad is widely tipped to step into Racing Bulls. That leaves one RB seat — and, in Schumacher’s eyes, a very real chance McLaren junior Alex Dunne gets it.
PlanetF1 has reported Dunne has held face-to-face talks with Helmut Marko. They’re said to be early-stage conversations, but McLaren’s recent willingness to let its juniors take opportunities elsewhere — see Gabriel Bortoleto’s exit to grab a Sauber race seat for 2025 — keeps the door wide open if Red Bull comes calling.
The complicating factor? Expectations. Racing Bulls have quietly upped their game, and that shifts the calculus. If the Faenza team is regularly in the points, throwing out all existing experience for a rookies-only lineup becomes a bolder, riskier bet.
“It would be unfair if they didn’t keep any drivers with F1 experience,” Schumacher admitted, even as he floated the idea of a Lindblad/Dunne partnership.
Tsunoda, meanwhile, remains a fascinating case study in environment. He thrived at Racing Bulls, then needed time to unlock the sharper-edged Red Bull. Even Verstappen has occasionally found the RB’s window narrow this season. Baku offered a glimpse of Tsunoda closing that gap, yet the stopwatch still painted a harsh picture by the flag.
Schumacher sees a path for Tsunoda if the team believes the tide is turning — and he name-checked the man now running the show at Milton Keynes. With Laurent Mekies replacing Christian Horner as Red Bull team principal and chief executive in July, there’s a different tone to driver management. Mekies knows Tsunoda well from their Faenza days, and Schumacher reckons that “human touch” could weigh in the Japanese driver’s favour if the trend line keeps pointing up.
As for Lawson, Baku was the kind of afternoon that earns trust: fast on Saturday, composed on Sunday, elbows out without overstepping. It’s exactly what the programme always asks of its prospects. Give him a slightly friendlier car and a bit of runway, and he looks capable of making hay — which is precisely why this could get messy. In a system that rewards the next big thing, you can do a lot right and still find the ladder pulled up.
Let’s zoom out. If Hadjar does move to Red Bull for 2026 and Lindblad graduates to Racing Bulls, the final RB seat becomes a knife fight between familiarity (Tsunoda/Lawson) and upside (Dunne). Tsunoda brings senior-team mileage and a growing understanding of Verstappen’s car. Lawson brings adaptability and a habit of maximising rough weekends. Dunne brings the glint of “what if?” that Red Bull has never been shy to chase.
What Baku did, more than anything, was keep the file open. Tsunoda proved there’s performance to be found in the RB19’s temperamental edges. Lawson reminded everyone why Red Bull rates him. And yet, as Schumacher made plain, the pathway above them isn’t clearing. It’s getting busier.
As ever with Red Bull, it’ll likely go late and go quickly. One good Sunday won’t decide it, but one bad run might. For two drivers who both did themselves proud in Azerbaijan, the reality is brutal: the bar has moved, and the stopwatch won’t stop.
