Red Bull’s reshuffle has done more than just tidy up a podium. It has blown the midfield fight wide open.
Pierre Gasly’s disqualification has handed Isack Hadjar his first Formula 1 podium, promoting the Red Bull driver into third and giving the 19-year-old a landmark result in his rookie campaign with the senior team after stepping up from sister outfit Racing Bulls at the start of the year.
Oscar Piastri also benefits. The McLaren driver climbs from fifth to fourth, having taken an in-race penalty that Gasly managed to sidestep before the Frenchman’s result was wiped.
The real winners, though, sit in the garage painted blue and white.
Racing Bulls, who initially watched Liam Lawson’s fifth place get pushed down to sixth in the post-race reshuffle, have seen the Kiwi’s result restored. It now stands as his best finish of the season, a timely boost in a campaign built on quiet consistency rather than fireworks.
Those two extra points matter. Lawson’s tally jumps from 49 to 51, while Gasly’s drops sharply from 44 to 35. That swing transforms the battle for ninth in the drivers’ standings – the unofficial title of “best of the rest” outside the sport’s dominant top four teams.
Arvid Lindblad also edges forward. The Racing Bulls rookie moves from seventh to sixth, another subtle gain that carries real weight in the constructors’ fight. With the revised results locked in, Racing Bulls now sit 14 points clear of Alpine in the contest for fifth in the constructors’ championship, a position that shapes prize money, leverage, and momentum heading into next year.
All of it funnels into this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where both Racing Bulls and Alpine have a golden chance to tilt the balance again in the slipstream-heavy chaos of the Temple of Speed.
There is a twist. Lawson, whose restored result has just tightened Racing Bulls’ grip on fifth, will not be in their car. He has been promoted to Red Bull to stand in for the injured Hadjar, trading midfield trench warfare for the sharp end of the grid.
Racing Bulls gain ground without their in-form driver. Alpine stare at a widening gap. Monza will tell whether this was the decisive break in the midfield, or just the start of a late-season surge from behind.
