Red Bull\u2019s sister team \u2013 Racing Bulls \u2013 showed impressive flashes of pace throughout 2025, earning them their joint-best finish of sixth in the Teams\u2019 Championship while Isack Hadjar was rewarded with promotion to the senior squad after a stellar rookie season. With a new rookie driver joining the outfit for 2026, can they pick up where they left off amid sweeping new rule changes? Here\u2019s everything you need to know about them ahead of the new F1 season\u2026<\/p>\n
Drivers for 2026<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson #30: Best finish of P5, 44 points, 35 starts
Arvid Lindblad #41: Rookie season<\/p>\n
To say Liam Lawson\u2019s<\/a> F1 career has been a rollercoaster is something of an understatement. This time last year he was at the Red Bull<\/a> senior team as Max Verstappen\u2019s<\/a> team mate before being demoted back to Racing Bulls<\/a> after just two rounds of the season, with Yuki Tsunoda \u2013 now Red Bull and Racing Bulls\u2019 test and reserve driver \u2013 going the other way.<\/p>\n The New Zealander had a solid remainder of the campaign to ensure he would stay with the team for 2026, in what will be just his second full F1 season \u2013 he came in as a substitute for the team in 2023 and competed in the final six rounds of 2024, both times replacing Daniel Ricciardo.<\/p>\n With Lawson\u2019s 2025 Racing Bulls team mate Isack Hadjar<\/a> stepping up to Red Bull for 2026, 18-year-old Briton Arvid Lindblad<\/a> has been promoted to F1 from Formula 2 and will be the only rookie on this season\u2019s grid.<\/p>\n Having long been a member of the Red Bull Junior Team, Lindblad made the switch to single-seaters in 2022, going on to finish fourth in the 2024 F3 championship, and he became the youngest race winner in F2 history when he embarked on his debut season in the category at 17 years old in 2025.<\/p>\n How did Racing Bulls do in 2025?<\/p>\n Amid both driver and management changes, Racing Bulls had an impressive 2025 as they claimed sixth in the Teams\u2019 Championship<\/a>. While inexperience showed at times, there were also some exceptional performances to shout about, most notably Hadjar\u2019s maiden podium at the Dutch Grand Prix and Lawson\u2019s run to fifth in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n As alluded to above, many of the Racing Bulls headlines in 2025 centred on personnel changes. Firstly, there was that aforementioned driver swap after two rounds \u2013 with Lawson and Tsunoda trading places \u2013 while Team Principal Laurent Mekies also moved to take charge at Red Bull after long-time boss Christian Horner departed in July.<\/p>\n That reshuffle saw Alan Permane<\/a> promoted from Racing Bulls Racing Director to Team Principal, the first time the Briton has taken on the role of a team boss after a lengthy career in F1.<\/p>\n History<\/p>\n While Racing Bulls are known as Red Bull\u2019s sister team these days, the squad\u2019s origins can be traced back to Minardi \u2013 a team based in Italy that competed in F1 from 1985 to 2005. A certain Fernando Alonso<\/a> made his F1 debut with the team way back in 2001.<\/p>\n Late Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz acquired the team at the end of 2005 and initially called it Toro Rosso (Red Bull in Italian) with the primary goal to nurture young talent and guide them towards the senior Red Bull outfit \u2013 future World Champions Sebastian Vettel<\/a> and Max Verstappen<\/a> spent time there in the early stages of their careers before being promoted to the \u2018A\u2019 team.<\/p>\n Vettel memorably achieved Toro Rosso\u2019s first pole position and F1 victory at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix \u2013 mastering tricky, wet conditions in the process \u2013 before Red Bull had reached such milestones.<\/p>\n In 2020 Toro Rosso were renamed as AlphaTauri (after Red Bull\u2019s clothing arm) before becoming RB for 2024, and then finally Racing Bulls for 2025. The squad are still primarily based in Faenza, Italy, but moved their UK offices from Bicester to Milton Keynes, where Red Bull are located.<\/p>\n Greatest achievement<\/p>\n There\u2019s something about Monza. Not only did Vettel\u2019s 2008 success in Italy mark the greatest achievement for the team in their post-Minardi era, but in 2020 Pierre Gasly matched that with a shock win at the same circuit.<\/p>\n Thanks to a well-timed tyre change, Safety Car periods and leader Lewis Hamilton\u2019s penalty for visiting the pit lane when it was closed, Gasly emerged at the head of the field and superbly kept a chasing Carlos Sainz \u2013 then of McLaren \u2013 at bay to cross the line first.<\/p>\n