{"id":864547,"date":"2026-08-20T04:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T04:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/864547\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T04:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T04:02:11","slug":"a-historic-red-bull-promotion-plus-how-you-ranked-the-drivers-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/864547\/","title":{"rendered":"A historic Red Bull promotion. Plus: How you ranked the drivers so far"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today I\u2019m really looking forward to the Dutch Grand Prix\u00a0and this coming weekend.<\/p>\n

Firstly, because I\u2019m getting married \u2014 so it\u2019ll be Patrick Iversen in your inboxes next week when we shift back to our regular newsletter cadence. And, of course, because the F1 championship is back in action after a long summer break.<\/p>\n

I think my fianc\u00e9 Emily will be happy with the order of those references \u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Alex, and Luke Smith will be along later.<\/p>\n

The Return: Lawson gets (temporary) Red Bull call-up<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something about Liam Lawson, big breaks and the Dutch GP.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, the New Zealander made his F1 debut at Zandvoort for a team then called AlphaTauri \u2014 now Racing Bulls \u2014 after Daniel Ricciardo\u00a0broke his hand<\/a>\u00a0in a practice crash.<\/p>\n

This weekend, Lawson was called up to race for Red Bull from Racing Bulls,\u00a0after Isack Hadjar\u00a0sustained a wrist injury<\/a>\u00a0over summer break.<\/p>\n

Hadjar, a\u00a0keen boxer<\/a>, reportedly sustained his injury\u00a0punching a sandbag<\/a>\u00a0as part of his summer training. (Obviously.)<\/p>\n

Last week, I touched on\u00a0the pressure Lawson\u2019s facing<\/a>\u00a0regarding his long-term F1 future. Now,\u00a0Lawson has received a huge vote of confidence from his Red Bull benefactors. He is about to do something no Red Bull driver has ever done before:\u00a0return to the senior Red Bull team after being demoted back to the junior squad.<\/p>\n

For Lawson, the\u00a0ruthless demotion last year<\/a>\u00a0happened just two races into the 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

Now, yes, his rise back is only happening through specific and unfortunate circumstances \u2014 with every indication that Hadjar will keep his place alongside Max Verstappen for 2027.\u00a0But it still stands out as very different from what has come before.<\/p>\n

Perhaps if the unrelenting Red Bull F1 old guard of Christian Horner and Helmut Marko were still in charge, then it would be Arvid Lindblad stepping up from Racing Bulls right now.\u00a0They favored such rapid promotions and getting the chance to assess a young driver in the toughest F1 test: being Verstappen\u2019s teammate.<\/p>\n

But that new\u00a0Red Bull team boss<\/a>\u00a0Laurent Mekies has selected Lawson instead is revealing.\u00a0It shows a new mentality \u2014 one not afforded to Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Ricciardo or Daniil Kvyat in previous eras.<\/p>\n

And a healthier mentality at that.<\/p>\n

(FWIW, Red Bull\u2019s F1 history actually started with swapping junior drivers Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi between races in 2005, but that\u2019s very different from the cold indifference shown to those four drivers above \u2014 plus Yuki Tsunoda, with more on him to come \u2014 once they were dropped from the main team\u2019s lineup in the modern era.)<\/p>\n

Lawson has been driving very well this year, even around Lindblad\u2019s searing qualifying speed in what is a good Racing Bulls car.<\/p>\n

A good Zandvoort result \u2014 such as his first Red Bull points after his awful two-race stint there last year before he was replaced by Tsunoda \u2014 would go a long way to ensuring Lawson\u2019s place in the Red Bull F1 fold for 2027.<\/p>\n

This would keep current Formula 2 points leader and Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov on the outside looking in, but\u00a0as I argued last week,<\/a>\u00a0the Bulgarian racer has time on his side.<\/p>\n

Now, over to Luke to explain why Red Bull hasn\u2019t recalled Tsunoda to replace Hadjar, even though he is the team\u2019s reserve driver.<\/p>\n

Inside the Paddock with Luke Smith: Why didn\u2019t Red Bull go back to Tsunoda?<\/p>\n

Tsunoda will be excited to get back on the F1 grid at Zandvoort. But is there a case to be made that he should be driving the Red Bull car, not the Racing Bulls car?<\/p>\n

Although Tsunoda\u2019s performances didn\u2019t set the world on fire in 22 races last year on Red Bull\u2019s top team, which led to Hadjar replacing him for this year, Red Bull saw enough to retain him as its official reserve driver.<\/p>\n

Yet now the team is in need of a replacement, and it opted for Lawson instead.\u00a0That\u2019s despite Tsunoda having more F1 experience (111 starts overall to Lawson\u2019s 46) and more recent knowledge of a Red Bull car.<\/p>\n

So, why Lawson?<\/p>\n

Well, his form this year has been sparkling, leading Racing Bulls efforts and looking the most confident he\u2019s ever been in F1.
\nHis rookie teammate, Lindblad, has posed close competition, but Lawson has finished ahead in all but two races both drivers have finished.
\nCrucially, Lawson also has racing experience with the 2026 cars that are vastly different to those Tsunoda drove in 2025.\u00a0The learning curve for Tsunoda would be much steeper,\u00a0even if Lawson also needs to adjust to the Red Bull car.<\/p>\n

As much as Lawson will want to use this opportunity to prove how much he has grown since his shock Red Bull demotion, it\u2019s really a chance to remind the F1 world of what he can do, and why he would deserve to be back on the grid in 2027.<\/p>\n

Back to you, Alex.<\/p>\n

Feedback Loop: How you ranked the drivers so far in 2026<\/p>\n

In last week\u2019s PT, I asked you to rank the F1 drivers based on their performances so far this season, after Luke and Madeline Coleman released their combined\u00a0top 10 drivers so far<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Your results are in, and your top drivers are:<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli
\nLewis Hamilton
\nMax Verstappen
\nLando Norris
\nCharles Leclerc
\nGeorge Russell
\nOscar Piastri
\nIsack Hadjar
\nLiam Lawson
\nPierre Gasly
\nArvid Lindblad
\nFranco Colapinto
\nOllie Bearman
\nGabriel Bortoleto
\nCarlos Sainz
\nAlex Albon
\nNico H\u00fclkenberg
\nEsteban Ocon
\nFernando Alonso
\nSergio P\u00e9rez
\nValtteri Bottas
\nLance Stroll<\/p>\n

(One thing to note: Everyone who responded was voting on the whole field, not just picking a top 10 like Luke and Madeline.)<\/p>\n

My main takeaways:<\/p>\n

In comparison to Luke and Madeline, who had Hamilton fifth,\u00a0the British Ferrari driver is the\u00a0biggest gainer<\/a>,\u00a0leaping to No. 2.
\nMcLaren\u2019s Norris<\/a>\u00a0was the biggest faller.\u00a0He dropped from second in our rankings to fourth in yours.
\nEveryone else in the top 10 was pretty much in the same order.
\nOf those drivers only PT readers voted on, 16th seems harsh for\u00a0Sainz<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 even with his\u00a0Piastri-bashing<\/a>\u00a0while being lapped last time out in Hungary.
\nBut 20th, 21st and 22nd seems spot on for P\u00e9rez, Bottas and Stroll, respectively.<\/p>\n

Thanks to everyone who voted in last week\u2019s PT poll.\u00a0We\u2019ll have a final\u00a02026 driver rankings<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and\u00a0team report card grades<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

Outside the Points<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcdd Sainz and Albon will continue to race for Williams in 2027, and as teammates for a third successive season, with fresh contract statuses announced on Tuesday<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Wednesday<\/a>, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u26cf Luke dug further into\u00a0Cadillac\u2019s sudden predicaments<\/a>, just five months into its first F1 season.<\/p>\n

\u26a1 I visited the London E-Prix to get\u00a0Formula E\u2019s response<\/a>\u00a0to catching strays from Verstappen in the four-time world champion\u2019s\u00a0vocal campaign railing against<\/a> F1\u2019s new engines earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 Luke also revealed how Mercedes is\u00a0keeping Antonelli so grounded<\/a> around all his success this year, with an in-depth interview with the team\u2019s outgoing junior driver scout.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc69\u200d\ud83d\udcbb And Madeline and I answered reader questions on the season so far in this\u00a0special summer mailbag<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-864547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}