{"id":112645,"date":"2025-09-02T07:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/112645\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T07:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:28:10","slug":"red-bull-now-told-who-the-best-option-is-to-partner-max-verstappen-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/112645\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull now told who the ‘best option’ is to partner Max Verstappen in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Questions are still being asked over who will partner Max Verstappen at Red Bull in 2026 after the Dutchman confirmed he would be staying on at the Milton Keynes squad. <\/p>\n

Verstappen put any rumours to rest that he would be leaving Red Bull<\/a> before the summer break, following speculation that he might be inclined to activate performance clauses in his current contract. <\/p>\n

The Dutchman is contracted to race at Red Bull until at least 2028, but there are performance clauses such as Verstappen<\/a> needing to be at least top three in the championship that must be met. <\/p>\n

The 2026 F1 ruleset<\/a> offers an unknown for all the teams, although Red Bull have reportedly suffered setbacks<\/a> that could be a dealbreaker for the Verstappen camp beyond next season. <\/p>\n

Either way, his teammate has yet to be confirmed, but racing driver and pundit Jeroen Bleekemolen has told Red Bull who they must sign in his latest column for Formule1.nl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"IsackPhoto by Clive Rose\/Getty ImagesJeroen Bleekemolen tells Red Bull to pair Max Verstappen with Isack Hadjar<\/p>\n

Realistically, there are three candidates for the second seat at Red Bull next year: current incumbent Yuki Tsunoda, Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar. <\/p>\n

The highest-placed driver in the championship out of those three is Hadjar, who scored his maiden podium with Racing Bulls at the Dutch Grand Prix. <\/p>\n

DriverWinsPointsPodiumsMax Verstappen22056Isack Hadjar0371Yuki Tsunoda0120Liam Lawson0200Red Bull drivers head-to-head in 2025<\/p>\n

Bleekemolen believes the 20-year-old Frenchman is ready to make the step up and partner Verstappen, especially after he effectively shadowed him throughout the race at Zandvoort. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look purely at Hadjar\u2019s qualities as a driver and you put that off against Yuki Tsunoda, Max\u2019s current teammate at Red Bull, then I personally think Hadjar is the best option for Red Bull. Yes, he has less experience than Tsunoda, but he does have more [talent] in his locker,\u201d said Bleekemolen. <\/p>\n

\u201cOk the name of Alex Palou has of course already fallen in this context as a candidate for the second seat next to Max. And I would also find that quite interesting, because Palou is a boy who I think has a lot of talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Isack Hadjar gives four-word answer on whether he\u2019s ready for Red Bull promotion after maiden F1 podium<\/a><\/p>\n

Isack Hadjar praised for impressive podium at Zandvoort<\/p>\n

Hadjar\u2019s podium has earned universal praise from people in the F1 paddock, not least because he has improved from his formation lap crash at the start of the season. <\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton sent a message of congratulations to Hadjar<\/a> on social media, while Helmut Marko also offered praise for Hadjar<\/a> when speaking after the race. <\/p>\n

Alex Brundle thinks Hadjar has matured since his days in F2<\/a>, when he was often heard frantic over team radio and warned that it could be the same in F1. <\/p>\n

Hadjar is the only driver other than Verstappen driving a Red Bull car this season to stand on the podium and has consistently finished in the points where neither Tsunoda nor Lawson could manage in both the Racing Bulls and main team car. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Questions are still being asked over who will partner Max Verstappen at Red Bull in 2026 after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,15263,10114,825,806,805,803,804,946,85],"class_list":["post-112645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dutch-grand-prix","tag-isack-hadjar","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}