MONZA, Italy — It’s might’ve gone quiet for many teams, but Formula One silly season is still rumbling on.
Red Bull has been at the center of these conversations for months, as fans and the paddock waited for Max Verstappen to confirm he’d stay with the Milton Keynes-based team for another season. That moment finally came during the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, and now, eyes are on who will fill the second Red Bull seat. This has arguably been the hardest seat on the grid during this regulation era. As former Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez once said, “Being teammates with Max at Red Bull as a young driver, I wouldn’t like to be in those shoes, if I’m honest. People cannot underestimate the level of challenge that there is in this seat.”
Since the start of the current regulations era in 2022, Verstappen has had three different teammates, with Pérez staying the longest after joining the previous season and departing at the end of the 2024 campaign. Liam Lawson lasted just two grands prix weekends this year before Red Bull swapped him for Yuki Tsunoda. He’s been in the seat since Suzuka. Newly appointed Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said during the Italian GP weekend that there’s no plan to do a driver swap this season.
But not only is Verstappen a hard teammate to go up against, given how he is a generational talent, but Red Bull’s car has become trickier as the seasons have passed, the development path having gone down a road that even Verstappen ended up struggling with the car. Dominant wins such as Monza last weekend have become the exception, not the norm.
But as Red Bull-contracted Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar pointed out during the Italian GP weekend, asthe regulations are changing from 2026, “it’s a brand new start for the team.”
“There won’t be this talk of the second car thing,” the rookie continued. “This wouldn’t be a thing, because it’s a brand new car for everyone. You will actually be in a phase where you need to direct the car into the right direction.”
So, with this in mind, who are the candidates Red Bull will review for its second seat, with the 2026 season underway in five months?
Yuki Tsunoda
Prior to his promotion to Red Bull this season, Tsunoda was a constant for Racing Bulls (formerly known as AlphaTauri). He made his F1 debut with the team in 2021, and while he scored points over the years, his early chapters were marked by moments of expressive emotion — mainly over his team radio, but there were also flashes such as aggressively brushing past former teammate Daniel Ricciardo post-race in Bahrain last year. It wasn’t until the 2024 season that he really morphed more into a team leader, scoring 30 points out of the team’s 46 points that year (the rest being split between Ricciardo, who had 12 points, and Lawson, who scored four in his short stint replacing the Australian).
Tsunoda joined Red Bull ahead of the 2025 Japanese GP, replacing Lawson, and scored his first points the following race weekend, with ninth in Bahrain. But that has remained his highest finish with Red Bull’s main team, which he repeated at Zandvoort after the summer break. He’s only scored 12 points this season, three from the Chinese GP sprint race (for Racing Bulls), and hasn’t exactly set the world on fire as Verstappen’s teammate. After Zandvoort, the average qualifying gap between them sat at half a second. That’s huge in F1.
There was an extended period of time, from Imola to Spa, during which Tsunoda had an older-spec car aerodynamics package compared to Verstappen. But even with the same specification from Spa to Zandvoort, there was still a gap to Verstappen (and Tsunoda has advanced to Q3 just twice since Miami in early May).
He’s faced pressure throughout this chapter and many on the outside have wondered whether Red Bull should have replaced him, as it did so ruthlessly with Lawson. But when asked ahead of the Italian GP weekend whether he felt he was making progress with the RB21, Tsunoda was adamant that he had since the first day.
Tsunoda’s form has improved, but big points haven’t followed and the Racing Bull drivers are still chasing his 2026 seat (Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)
“I wouldn’t say it showed in the results the first few races, but at least in how I felt, I was fully convinced I was in the right direction, just step by step,” he said. “Jumping into the middle of the season is not easy. A lot of things changed also within the Red Bull team as well. So I gave my all every race.
“But I knew, especially in the last few races, it’s been getting closer and closer. It’s about putting it all together, especially as the whole field is very tight. Every millisecond from Q1, Q2, Q3 counts a lot.”
Tsunoda felt that he did “put it all together” during the Dutch GP weekend, labeling it “one of the best weekends I had in terms of progress and the quality throughout the weekend.”
But the idea of Tsunoda staying at Red Bull past this season has long seemed unlikely, dating back to December 2024 and when Red Bull initally picked Lawson to replace Peréz. Former team principal Christian Horner said, “We’re acutely aware that if we’re not able to provide an opportunity for Yuki being, in all honesty, this year, does it make sense? You can’t have a driver in the support team for five years. You can’t always be the bridesmaid. You’ve either got to let them go at that point or look at something different.”
The lack of impressive results — Tsunoda is currently 19th and last of those who have scored points in the drivers’ standings when Verstappen still has an outside shot of the 2025 and showed Red Bull’s car is still capable of wins with his Monza masterclass — will not have improved Tsunoda’s chances of staying put for 2026.
Isack Hadjar
With pressure mounting on Tsunoda, Hadjar began facing questions about whether he’d feel ready to step into the second Red Bull seat. His answer has long been to dismiss any talk about this year, as it’s his rookie campaign, but with a first F1 podium finish under his belt, he doesn’t seem closed off to the idea of 2026.
He went as far as to say it’s “way easier” to make that jump with the regulations reset. Even with the pressures of Red Bull’s second seat, Hadjar said, “I want to race for the best team.”
“If I happen to be alongside him (Verstappen), then I would be adapting to a car that’s changing, but at least I’ll be there,” Hadjar later said at Monza. “I wouldn’t be used to something.”
Hadjar has become a constant threat for Racing Bulls, scoring 38 of the team’s 61 points and taking its first podium since Baku 2021 with third place at Zandvoort. His season started on a sour note, as he crashed during the formation lap for the Australian GP, but he went on a steady point-scoring streak during the European triple header in the late spring. But after bringing home six points from Spain, he only had one point, from the Belgium sprint race, across the next two months and six races until his podium at Zandvoort.
As of the start of the Italian GP weekend, Hadjar personally hadn’t spoken with Red Bull team advisor Helmut Marko about a potential 2026 promotion, saying, “I’m not in a rush.” The big question remaining hovering in the background is whether he’s ready for such a step after just one F1 campaign. Red Bull has made promotions too quickly before, such as having Lawson replace Pérez for 2025 before he had a full, season-long run under his belt. Stepping up to F1 is a challenge in and of itself, but going to Red Bull, as with any of the top teams, is a different beast for a young driver.
When asked whether he felt his Racing Bulls teammate was ready for the promotion, Lawson said, “I think he’s done a very good job this year, and to have a podium in the season is pretty spectacular, so he’s done a very good job. In some ways, I think a lot of drivers always feel ready for another step. I think he’s doing all the right things right now, but it depends.
“It depends on what position the car is in next year, on how it is to drive. That’s probably the biggest thing about that seat right now. So there are a lot of variables there, but as a driver, he’s ready. I think if you’re ready to be in F1 in the first place, I think you’d be ready for that kind of position.”
Liam Lawson
But what about Lawson’s chances? Red Bull has never given a driver a second chance once they’ve been demoted. While Ricciardo returned to the Red Bull family as a reserve driver, and there was some rapid seat swapping in its early years in F1, none who were demoted from the main team have ever made it back to a race seat there.
Although never say never. When Red Bull opted to replace Lawson for Tsunoda after two race weekends, Horner said in the accompanying news release, in part, “We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam and together, we see that after such a difficult start, it makes sense to act quickly so Liam can gain experience, as he continues his F1 career with Racing Bulls, an environment and a team he knows very well.”
Since returning there, Lawson has gotten stronger, though it took time. His first points finish of 2025 didn’t come until the Monaco GP, round eight, and his strongest weekend was in Austria, where he secured a sixth-place finish. So could Lawson really insert himself into the conversation for a Red Bull return? It feels far-fetched, given the team’s history and how Hadjar is performing. Right now, he’s focused on maximizing each weekend rather than a possible promotion.
“I don’t know when it’s being decided and what’s going on there,” Lawson said ahead of the Italian GP weekend. “We have nine more this year, and a lot can happen in those nine races. So for me, it’s about securing a place in F1. Honestly, it’s been a very hectic year after everything, so I’m more focused on securing a seat and having a good, strong second half of the season.”
Arvid Lindblad, 18, is Red Bull’s top driving prospect in motorsport’s junior categories (Clive Rose/Getty Images)Arvid Lindblad
Lindblad, 18, has been tabbed as Red Bull’s rising star, receiving his super license early — at age 17 back in June. At the time, the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council found “that the driver has recently and consistently demonstrated outstanding ability and maturity in single-seater formula car competition,” as it approved the early license. Lindblad sat third in the Formula Two standings at the time, with two wins, and he now sits seventh after Monza, still with two wins to his name and just three more rounds of the season to go.
Lindblad’s racing career only started a decade ago, with karting in 2015. And in 2021, he joined the Red Bull Junior Team and began his single-seater journey a year later, starting with the Italian Formula Four Championship. He placed 17th in that first season and kept it on his schedule in 2023, while expanding his slate to include the F4 United Arab Emirates Championship (where he finished fifth) and Euro 4 Championship (where he finished fourth). He also won a Formula Four race on the bill at the iconic Macau Grand Prix (for Formula Three cars).
From there, he spent a year in Formula Three, where he made championship history as the youngest race winner (in the Bahrain sprint race) and became the first driver in the FIA F3 series that has been organized since 2019 to win every race on an F3 weekend (Silverstone). He advanced to F2 this year and participated in a practice session during the British GP weekend, where he finished within half a second of Verstappen. Horner called him “a prospect for the future” after that practice outing.
“From my side, he raced for my best friend’s go-kart team, so I already had a bit of information on him, and he’s great,” Verstappen said when asked for his impression of Lindblad that weekend. “He’s very fast and he just needs to do it step by step. I also think the way that Red Bull is preparing him is good. He just needs to do his thing. Being labelled as the next Max, he should just be himself. That’s what you need to focus on.”
With Lindblad, it’s more likely that he’ll be a candidate for a Racing Bulls seat in 2026 rather than going straight to Red Bull. Racing Bulls would only have a slot if one of Tsunoda or Lawson is dropped, with Hadjar then replacing the former at Red Bull.
What are Laurent Mekies’ thoughts?
Buckle in, F1 fans. This decision isn’t coming any time soon. Mekies, Horner’s replacement after his sudden post-Silverstone sacking, told F1TV during the Italian GP weekend that his team “have quite a few more weeks to make a decision.”
As far as this season is concerned, Mekies said during the FIA news conference at Monza that there is no plan to change the Red Bull line-up again during the campaign. In his eyes, “Yuki has been making a good step in the last three races. We all want more, but he’s doing a good job. He was, for the first time, back in the points after seven races in Zandvoort. He was close enough to Max in Budapest and had his best qualifying with the team in Spa. So he’s on a positive trend.”
On Red Bull’s 2026 driver lineup, Mekies acknowledged that it has “enough drivers between the driver programs to cover quite a few scenarios for next year, and we don’t have real reasons to rush into decisions.”
“We are relaxed about the driver topic, because fundamentally we have all our cards on the Red Bull side, and we can take a few more weeks – or months – to decide. Of course, that doesn’t mean we have to wait until the last race (of 2025) to decide, because we respect that it might impact our drivers one way or another. But for sure, we feel we have time right now.”
An earlier version of this article misstated Yuki Tsunoda’s 2024 points total with Racing Bulls. He scored 30 points out of the team’s 46 points that season, not 17.
Top photos of Isack Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda: SIPA USA; Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images