Isack Hadjar’s wait goes on. The French rookie will sit out a third consecutive race as he continues to recover from a fractured wrist, ruling him out of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid.
Red Bull have turned again to Liam Lawson. The New Zealander will line up alongside Max Verstappen for a third straight event, while Yuki Tsunoda keeps his seat at Racing Bulls.
Hadjar picked up a hairline fracture in his wrist during the summer break, in what was meant to be a routine boxing workout. Instead, it has cost him the Dutch, Italian and now Spanish rounds, just as his F1 career was starting to gather momentum.
Red Bull set out the situation in a brief statement. Lawson, they confirmed, will stay in the car in Madrid after racing for the team at Zandvoort and Monza. Hadjar’s recovery is “progressing positively”, but not fast enough to put him back in the cockpit. He will still travel to Spain to support the team, with Red Bull stressing they are eager to see him “back behind the wheel very soon”.
Lawson’s second audition
Lawson has turned this enforced reshuffle into a second audition at the sharp end of the grid.
At Zandvoort he parked his car just a tenth of a second behind Verstappen in qualifying, then converted that pace into seventh place in the race. It was a stark contrast to his two early 2025 outings with Red Bull, after which he was swiftly dropped.
Monza was messier, but it did little to dim the sense that he belongs at this level. He fell in Q2, his best lap compromised when Oscar Piastri impeded him. Engine penalties then dumped him to a pit-lane start. When the race was reset with an early standing restart, contact with Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg forced an unscheduled front-wing change and left him fighting from the back again. He salvaged 14th, while Verstappen climbed to the podium.
Not perfect. But noisy enough to keep his name in every conversation about Red Bull’s future options.
Tsunoda steady as Audi circle
While Red Bull reshuffle, Tsunoda has quietly stitched together two important weekends at Racing Bulls.
At Zandvoort he finished just ahead of team-mate Arvid Lindblad. At Monza he nicked the final point in 10th, another small but significant return for a driver who knows he is fighting for his F1 future.
That result may yet be dragged back into the spotlight. Audi look set to appeal over an incident at the standing restart, when Tsunoda pulled into the wrong grid slot and triggered an extra formation lap. The on-track performance stands, but the paperwork may not be finished.
Tsunoda, 26, was dropped by Red Bull last season. He has been open about what comes next. Speaking before the Italian Grand Prix, he said he is free for 2027 and wants teams to pick up the phone.
“I'm free! Would love to hear those calls, but not yet,” he said, adding that his “primary target is to be in Formula 1” even while accepting how hard it is to secure a seat. Results like Monza, even under appeal, are his best argument.
Madrid stage set
The new Madrid race now arrives with a familiar but still intriguing storyline at Red Bull: Verstappen as the reference, Lawson as the stand-in chasing a permanent future, Hadjar watching on with his wrist still healing, and Tsunoda grinding out weekends at Racing Bulls while Audi’s lawyers pore over Monza.
For some, this is just another stop on a long calendar. For Lawson, Hadjar and Tsunoda, it feels a lot more like a crossroads.
