18 September 2025 – 10:15<\/p>\n
Dr Helmut Marko says Red Bull will finalise its 2026 driver rosters no later than the end of this year.<\/p>\n
“We want to have a guideline in place after Mexico,” the 82-year-old F1 advisor to the famous energy drink brand told RTL.<\/p>\n
“The end of the year is the very last date for us.”<\/p>\n
The most likely scenario is Isack Hadjar stepping up to replace Yuki Tsunoda alongside Max Verstappen, with teenager Arvid Lindblad promoted into Formula 1 and Racing Bulls next to Liam Lawson.<\/p>\n
But Marko insists no decisions have been taken yet.<\/p>\n
“We want to see how Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson perform so we can make the right decisions for next year,” he explained.<\/p>\n
Hadjar\u2019s place in the Red Bull system is already secure. “We have an ongoing contract with him that runs for several years. We\u2019ve already made provisions for that,” Marko emphasised.<\/p>\n
On whether the French rookie can survive as Verstappen\u2019s teammate, he said: “That\u2019s why we want to see more races.<\/p>\n
“So far, he\u2019s been doing very well. The last race was a bit of a letdown. But starting from the pitlane, he still managed to finish tenth in Monza.”<\/p>\n
Marko praised Hadjar\u2019s speed of adaptation in particular. “Within two or three laps, he\u2019s with the music,” he smiled. “Mentally, he should be capable of holding his own against Max.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Austrian couldn\u2019t resist a jab at Mercedes, where George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli remain unconfirmed for 2026.<\/p>\n
“They\u2019re certainly not waiting for Max anymore. And I don\u2019t really know anyone else who could be considered as team leader,” Marko said, suggesting contract wrangling over Russell\u2019s new deal is the reason for the delay.<\/p>\n
“I think these are negotiations about salary, after Russell was kept waiting for such a long time,” he speculated. “Perhaps this hesitation is revenge for not having made an official decision yet.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"18 September 2025 – 10:15 Dr Helmut Marko says Red Bull will finalise its 2026 driver rosters no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-145078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}