Liam Lawson will line up for Red Bull Racing at the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend, back in the seat that the team took off him after two races in 2025.
Red Bull confirmed on Wednesday that Isack Hadjar had hurt his wrist during the Formula One summer shutdown and would not race at Zandvoort. Lawson, who has spent this season with the junior Racing Bulls team, moves up to partner Max Verstappen for the weekend.
“Red Bull Racing driver Isack Hadjar has sustained a wrist injury during summer shutdown that will prevent him from racing at the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix,” the team said in a statement carried by Formula One. “We will be welcoming back Liam Lawson, who will replace him in RB22 this weekend. The team wishes Isack a speedy recovery and thanks Liam for stepping in on short notice.”
The change sets off a chain reaction down the Red Bull driver ladder. Yuki Tsunoda, who lost his race seat at the end of last season and has been carrying reserve duties for both teams, takes Lawson’s car at Racing Bulls alongside rookie Arvid Lindblad.
“We thank both Liam and Yuki for their adaptability as the teams prepare for the weekend and we wish Isack a speedy recovery,” Racing Bulls said in its own statement. Autosport reported that Hadjar picked up the injury in a gym session during the break.
For the 24 year old from Pukekohe, it is a return to a place that did not go well the first time. Lawson was promoted to the senior Red Bull team for 2025 to replace Sergio Perez, having started only 11 grands prix. He was knocked out in the first part of qualifying at every session in Australia and China, scored no points, and was sent back to the junior team from the Japanese Grand Prix onwards.
Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko was blunt about it at the time. “Yuki was too inconsistent,” Marko said in March 2025, in comments reported by RaceFans. “That’s why we unanimously decided on Lawson. But under the increased pressure, he wasn’t able to perform – right from the first day in Australia. Then he got caught in a downward spiral. It’s like a struggling boxer – it’s very difficult to get out of. In that sense, it was a mistake.”
What happened next is why Lawson is getting a third start for the senior team rather than a quiet exit from the sport. Back at the junior outfit he scored points seven times over the rest of 2025, including sixth in Austria and fifth in Azerbaijan, and finished the year with 38 points. That run was enough for Red Bull to keep him for 2026 and let Tsunoda go.
This season he has been the strongest driver outside the four big teams. Lawson sits ninth in the drivers’ standings on 43 points, with sixth places at Monaco and Silverstone his best results, according to the official championship table. He leads Lindblad 6 to 5 in qualifying and 8 to 3 on race day, and Racing Bulls have climbed to fifth in the constructors’ championship on 66 points, the team’s strongest championship position in its history.
The odd part of the promotion is that the Red Bull seat is no longer the prize it once was. The 2026 rule changes, which brought in new engines and active aerodynamics, have reshuffled the order and Mercedes have run away with it. Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ championship on 219 points and Mercedes hold 379 in the constructors’ table. Red Bull are fourth on 177, behind Ferrari and McLaren, and Verstappen is sixth in the drivers’ standings on 109 points, having won nothing like the share of races he did in his title years.
That cuts both ways for Lawson. He is not stepping into a car that is expected to win, so a modest weekend will not be read as failure. But the RB22 is still a quicker machine than the one he has been driving, and Verstappen is the most unforgiving yardstick on the grid.
The weekend also carries an extra complication. Zandvoort is running the sprint format for the first time, one of six sprint rounds this year, which means only one practice session before the racing starts. Lawson gets a single hour on Friday to learn a car he has not raced, then sprint qualifying the same afternoon. The sprint follows on Saturday over 24 laps, with normal qualifying later that day and the 72 lap grand prix on Sunday afternoon at Zandvoort, which is early on Monday morning New Zealand time.
It is also the last Dutch Grand Prix under the circuit’s current contract, so the grandstands will be full and firmly behind the other car in the Red Bull garage.
Red Bull has not said whether Hadjar will be fit for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. There is a two week gap after Zandvoort, which gives the wrist more time to settle. Hadjar, in his first season with the senior team, is eighth in the standings on 68 points and had scored in seven straight races before the break.
Tsunoda’s return is a footnote for most of the grid but a real one for him. He has 111 grand prix starts and has spent 2026 watching from the garage, with his name linked to a move to IndyCar. A weekend back in a race seat at a circuit he knows is a chance to remind teams he is still quick.
New Zealand has had a long and thin thread in Formula One. Denny Hulme remains the country’s only world champion, from 1967, and Chris Amon is still widely regarded as the fastest driver never to win a championship grand prix. Brendon Hartley had two seasons at Toro Rosso before Lawson arrived. None of them ever had a weekend quite like this one, called up mid season to a top four car with almost no practice.
Will Lawson make the most of his second chance at Red Bull, or is Zandvoort simply a one off before he goes back to the junior team? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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