Red Bull’s next call could be its messiest in years. With the pipeline jammed and patience thinning, the word in the paddock is that Arvid Lindblad is on course for a Racing Bulls seat in 2026. If that happens, one of Yuki Tsunoda or Liam Lawson is likely to be squeezed out. And depending on who you listen to inside Red Bull, the answer to “who?” can change by the day.
Juan Pablo Montoya, never shy of calling it as he sees it, believes politics may trump lap time. On his MontoyAS podcast, he suggested that if Helmut Marko alone held the keys, Tsunoda would “90% be out.” But these aren’t the Marko-only days. “Red Bull Austria,” as Montoya put it, has more say than before — and that could tilt the call towards keeping Tsunoda and moving Lawson aside.
Strip it back and the maths is brutal. Red Bull’s ecosystem effectively has three realistic seats for four names: Tsunoda, Lawson, the fast-rising Lindblad, and Isack Hadjar. Montoya’s view is that Lindblad “goes up for sure.” After that, it’s essentially Tsunoda vs Lawson for the remaining Racing Bulls berth — with Hadjar circling a promotion of his own somewhere in the organisation.
That last piece is the hand grenade. Hadjar has momentum and admirers, and his name keeps cropping up in conversations about Red Bull’s 2026 direction. Whether that’s a full-time graduation to the senior team or a season of seasoning at Racing Bulls will dictate who gets shuffled and where. What we can say, grounded in the current 2025 World Championship entry list, is this: Red Bull Racing’s line-up today is set and winning, and any future change at the top would be a significant strategic swing.
Where does the form guide point? Tsunoda’s arc this season has been upward. He’s put together a run of tidy Sundays, banked points on tough weekends, and generally looked a more complete operator than the spiky prospect who first arrived. Crucially, he’s done a lot of the heavy lifting any time Racing Bulls have had a sniff of the top 10. That’s the kind of reliability teams cling to when decisions get uncomfortable.
Lawson, though, hasn’t exactly fumbled his audition. The Kiwi’s calling cards are economy and racecraft — low error count, good tyre life, clean execution. He’s the steadier of the two on the radio and rarely looks rattled. In a car that lives on the cusp of Q2/Q3, that composure has quietly delivered.
Montoya sits in Tsunoda’s corner, arguing continuity over churn. His logic: with the 2026 rules reset looming, Red Bull gains more from keeping a known quantity at Racing Bulls and bedding in Lindblad than it does by ripping out the scaffolding. In his ideal world, it’s Verstappen anchored at Red Bull, with Racing Bulls housing Lawson and Hadjar while Tsunoda stays under the umbrella. It’s a neat solution, if not the most obvious on paper, and it would buy Red Bull time to see which of the juniors adapts quickest to new regulations.
But neat isn’t always how Red Bull operates. The programme has long prized upside — the promise of where a driver could get to — over warm familiarity. That’s where internal politics enters the chat. Marko’s taste tends to skew ruthless and forward-leaning. Red Bull GmbH’s influence, by contrast, has grown more boardroom than bullring, with commercial alignments and partner interests now part of the calculus. In that environment, Tsunoda’s longstanding ties inside the organisation could count for more than any single qualifying lap.
It’s also why this isn’t just a spreadsheet exercise. Tsunoda is a known act to sponsors and fans, a personality who moves the needle. Lawson is a marketer’s dream in New Zealand and consistency embodied on track. Hadjar and Lindblad are the next-gen bets Red Bull has spent years nurturing. Choosing between them isn’t just about who’s a tenth quicker on a Friday at the Hungaroring.
So when does the hammer drop? Don’t expect fireworks tomorrow. Red Bull tends to make these calls late enough to keep everyone hungry, early enough to control the narrative. The teams are still counting points in 2025 — see the official World Championship standings for the only numbers that matter — and no one will thank them for lobbing a grenade into the garage in the middle of a points run.
For now, the paddock hum is this: Lindblad is coming. Hadjar’s stock is rising. One of Tsunoda or Lawson will feel the squeeze. And in a rare twist, the decision might be settled less by a stopwatch than by the shifting center of gravity inside Red Bull itself.
That’s the game. It’s brutal, it’s political, and it’s why Red Bull’s junior ladder keeps everyone talking — even the drivers who’ve already climbed it.
