Red Bull’s made its 2026 Formula 1 line-up decision: Isack Hadjar up to the main team to join Max Verstappen, and Arvid Lindblad fills the Racing Bulls gap alongside Liam Lawson.
Which means no space for Yuki Tsunoda – and his dream move into the seat he’s chased throughout his F1 career has backfired so badly that he’s lost his place on the grid altogether, instead settling in as Red Bull’s reserve driver.
Here’s our team’s take on Tsunoda’s fate and Red Bull’s decision.
A new world for HadjarGary Anderson
In reality Red Bull had no other options but to promote Hadjar. He has proven his speed this year with Racing Bulls – but then so did Lawson and Tsunoda, and when they stepped up to the main team they were less than convincing.
I’ve said before that I would like to have seen Hadjar get an extra year at Racing Bulls to allow him to smooth off some of his rough edges but I’m sure he will take this opportunity with open arms.
I just hope that Red Bull gives him the time to settle into the pressure of driving for a team that feels it hasn’t achieved what it should do each race weekend if at least one driver and possibly two aren’t on the podium.
With the new regulations coming in for 2026 it’s probably the best time to get matched up against Verstappen. At least Hadjar won’t have much carry-over of how the car should feel so both of them can head into this new journey from a zero-data base. Still, it won’t be easy against arguably the best driver on the current grid.
Tsunoda’s performance, although improving in the later races, didn’t come anywhere near matching Verstappen’s so in reality if Red Bull is ever to become a two-car team again it needed someone with the potential to regularly score points. Is Hadjar that person? Only time will tell.
As for Racing Bulls, keeping Lawson for consistency is a wise move. He didn’t get a real crack at it when he was promoted to Red Bull so I think there is still some speed and professionalism in there to tap into.
I think the jury is still out on Lindblad. He hasn’t been as consistent in Formula 2 as I think he should be before stepping up to the big time, but he has now got the opportunity to show what he is worth. He just has to make the best of it, and again with the change in regulations at least it all starts from a clean sheet.
Red Bull blew its best solution a year agoJack Benyon
I have no sympathy for Red Bull as, in my opinion, the answer to its second car problem was staring it in the face last year. It was Carlos Sainz. And it stupidly let him slip away.
Hadjar has had a good year. But he didn’t look levels above Tsunoda (admittedly only for two races together) or Lawson (someone it took Red Bull two races to decide wasn’t good enough) for the rest of the season.
Hadjar’s not performed so far over Lawson’s level that his promotion is a ‘must do’. I know he’s a rookie, but still, you should have to do something really special to be in a title-challenging car in year two. I don’t think he’s earned that yet personally.
Sainz has two more podiums than Tsunoda this year… in a midfield Williams. In a car with lots of issues and with zero development help since April. Sainz’s dragged it to amazing results and galvanised a united team behind him in the process.
He ought to be in a top car and the fact that neither Red Bull nor Mercedes signed him and Ferrari didn’t keep him still angers me now. And he was a better answer for all three teams than the drivers they’ve actually run in 2025.
Tsunoda failed but Red Bull is culpableScott Mitchell-Malm
Tsunoda has been better, at times, than some people probably give him credit for at Red Bull. But not good enough overall. However, the fault there lies as much with Red Bull as with him.
There have been moments along the way where he lost better results and opportunities because of Red Bull errors. The bigger mistake though was throwing him into the car in-season when he could (probably should) have been picked at the end of last year.
All that did was cost Tsunoda a proper pre-season integration with the team and the best possible chance of making it work. He and Red Bull have been paying for that since.
So, irrespective of Tsunoda not doing a good enough job with the opportunity he did subsequently get, Red Bull has to start making better decisions with its driver management. Maybe this reshuffle – though it comes at Tsunoda’s cost – can be the first part of a necessary reset.
Putting Hadjar in alongside Verstappen could work. Hadjar is clearly more highly regarded within Red Bull than Tsunoda really ever was, and is probably the fastest Red Bull junior since Verstappen came in a decade ago. He also joins at the start of a brand new set of rules, a full pre-season and so on.
And for the second team these changes are a first step towards restocking the talent pipeline. Lindblad has shown really strong glimpses of great potential but he’s also had a rocky F2 season. So he’s a bit of a wildcard and needs a good, strong, learning year, safe in the knowledge that his trajectory is set in the medium term.
Ideally for Red Bull, Hadjar will work well at the top team, Lindblad will work well at the second team, and there will be stability on the driver’s side for at least two, maybe even three seasons.
Otherwise Red Bull just restarts its dysfunctional cycle and will be scrambling for a stop-gap solution somewhere in its driver line-up yet again.
Lawson’s quick Red Bull failure ultimately saved himJack Cozens
Things have a funny way of working out, sometimes. In this instance, the consequence of Lawson being so inept in the Red Bull seat might be what’s saved him for 2026.
Tsunoda has spoken often about how disadvantageous not getting a pre-season in the car has been. As recently as Mexico, in late October, he said having that experience means “you can do whatever you want and head into the season [prepared]”, but instead he’s had to “jump in the middle [of the] season and always go to the new track” like he’s never driven the car.
I’d contend that some of that claim doesn’t stand up. Even if it does feel like a “new” experience each weekend, he’s had enough of them at this point that there should really be an upwards trend. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been enough evidence of that.
For what it’s worth, I do have sympathy for Tsunoda. I even wonder whether had he made it through to Q3 at Suzuka, as he’d looked poised to do all weekend before that, his whole trajectory might’ve been different.
He took on an unenviable task – one that he couldn’t say no to – because someone else wasn’t up to it. And he has done a better job. It just hasn’t been anywhere near enough of a better one, unfortunately.
It’s cliche to say, but F1 is a results business. Tsunoda clearly hasn’t delivered them. That’s the harsh reality of it all.
Where’s Super Aguri when you need it?Matt Beer
If only Honda had access to a couple of old Red Bulls and there was rules continuity so it could lash up an unexpected new F1 team for Tsunoda and Someone Else to give him chance to stay on the grid – as it did with the Super Aguri project when Takuma Sato’s place in Honda’s works team couldn’t be justified anymore in 2006.
That’s not an entirely serious suggestion (and though Sato had some brilliant underdog moments in Super Aguri’s brief existence, it didn’t really add much to his F1 career). My point is more that Tsunoda’s now damaged goods to the extent that, despite the relative reprieve of a reserve gig, his F1 racing days are almost certainly over, and there’s a more compelling argument for him still having more to give than there was for Sato – who in 2004 had the benefit of BAR-Honda’s peak year and scored one podium to team-mate Jenson Button’s 10.
You can’t look at Tsunoda’s results versus Verstappen’s as starkly as that given the recent history of Red Bull’s second-car struggles and Tsunoda being chucked into the team after the season had already started.
Yes, he should have done much better. Yes, it’s enough evidence that he’s not got everything it takes to thrive in a top F1 team. No, he probably wouldn’t have been content with staying indefinitely in a nice, compliant Racing Bulls and starring with less pressure of expectation even though it would’ve been much better for his F1 career longevity.
But Tsunoda’s best moments at Red Bull’s second team showed so much exciting promise, and worse drivers are ending up with longer F1 careers than the five seasons that look like they’ll be his limit. This ends as a story of ultimately unfulfilled potential. And that’s a real shame.
Maybe though, as Super Aguri: The Next Generation isn’t a realistic answer, taking another leaf from the Sato book and winning Honda a couple of Indianapolis 500s should be instead.