It is now official. Isack Hadjar will miss this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort after sustaining a wrist injury during the summer break, and Liam Lawson will slot back into the Red Bull cockpit alongside Max Verstappen. As a knock-on effect, Yuki Tsunoda, currently serving as Red Bull’s reserve driver after losing his race seat at the end of 2025, returns to the grid with Racing Bulls. The whole thing is a neat little carousel of Red Bull’s recent history, and it confirms, once again, that nobody ever truly leaves the Milton Keynes orbit.
What Happened to Hadjar
The injury was picked up during a gym session in the summer shutdown, as reported by Motorsport.com. The timing is particularly cruel for Hadjar, who has had a genuinely impressive debut season in the senior Red Bull machine. The 21-year-old had scored points in seven consecutive Grands Prix heading into the summer break, sitting eighth in the drivers’ championship with 68 points. He was building momentum. And now he is watching Zandvoort from the sidelines, which stings even more given that this circuit handed him his first and only F1 podium back in 2025, when he finished third for Racing Bulls.
Red Bull kept it brief and diplomatic in their official statement:
“Isack Hadjar has sustained a wrist injury during summer shutdown that will prevent him from racing at the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix. 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.” – Red Bull Racing
No word yet on the severity of the injury or whether Hadjar faces a longer absence. With the Italian Grand Prix at Monza following two weeks after Zandvoort, there is at least some breathing room, unlike in previous years when the Dutch and Italian rounds ran in back-to-back weekends. Everyone will be hoping that extra fortnight is enough.
Lawson: A Second Chance at the Big Table
Here is where it gets interesting. Lawson is not just filling a seat. He is returning to a team that unceremoniously dropped him after just two rounds of the 2025 season, following a pointless campaign in Australia and China alongside Verstappen. That demotion, swift and public, would have stung. Tsunoda was handed the Red Bull seat in his place, and Lawson trudged back to Racing Bulls.
What happened next, though, is the part worth noting. Lawson did not sulk. He rebuilt. He scored points in eight of the eleven rounds before this summer break, currently sits ninth in the championship with 43 points, and is emphatically the best-performing driver outside the four top teams. He has, in short, made himself impossible to ignore.
That consistent 2026 form is almost certainly why Red Bull opted for Lawson over Tsunoda as Hadjar’s replacement. Lawson has been living and breathing the radically different 2026 cars all season. Dropping Tsunoda, who has not raced since Abu Dhabi last November, into the senior Red Bull on a few days’ notice would have been a significantly bigger ask.
There is also a pleasing symmetry to all of this. Lawson made his Formula 1 debut as a substitute driver at Zandvoort in 2023, stepping in for Daniel Ricciardo after Ricciardo broke his hand in a practice session. Three years on, and he is back at the same circuit, this time as a known quantity rather than a nervous debutant. The circuit owes him something. Hopefully he collects.
Tsunoda’s Grid Return
For Tsunoda, this is a rather different kind of opportunity. The Japanese driver spent four seasons with the Faenza outfit before being promoted to Red Bull for 2025, only to struggle badly alongside Verstappen and lose his seat to Hadjar for 2026. He has been in reserve driver purgatory since Abu Dhabi last year, waiting for exactly this kind of phone call.
Racing Bulls confirmed his return 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
This will be Tsunoda’s 90th start for the junior team, a remarkable number that speaks to just how central he has been to the Red Bull programme over the years. He knows Racing Bulls inside out, which makes him the sensible choice here. Whether this Zandvoort cameo serves as an audition for anything longer-term is less clear. Tsunoda is reportedly in discussions for an IndyCar drive with Meyer Shank Racing in 2027, as covered in our earlier piece on Tsunoda’s IndyCar talks, which suggests his Formula 1 chapter may genuinely be drawing to a close.
What This Means for the Weekend
For Red Bull as a constructor, the disruption is not ideal. Verstappen is racing at his home circuit, in front of an orange army that will expect fireworks, and his team-mate slot is now occupied by a driver who has not been in that specific car all year. The RB22 is not a simple machine to jump into cold, and the 2026 regulations have produced cars with genuinely different characteristics to anything that came before. Lawson will need to hit the ground running.
Meanwhile, our earlier report on Hadjar’s injury flagged the situation before official confirmation landed, so none of this should come as a complete shock. But official confirmation has a way of making things feel more real.
The bigger picture question is straightforward enough: can Lawson use this weekend to plant a flag? He is 24, he is in form, and he is racing at a circuit where he has history. Red Bull’s driver decisions have a habit of being made on exactly this kind of short-notice evidence. It would be unwise, for all concerned, to treat this as a mere administrative substitution.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Red Bull’s Driver Decisions
There is a pattern here that Red Bull fans and critics alike should acknowledge. Lawson was dropped after two difficult rounds in 2025. Tsunoda was dropped after a painful season alongside Verstappen. Hadjar, despite a strong campaign, is now absent through injury at a race that holds special significance for him personally. None of this is Red Bull’s fault in the conventional sense, but the organisation has a remarkable talent for cycling drivers in and out of its ecosystem in ways that never quite feel settled or secure.
Lawson deserves this chance. He has earned it through sheer consistency when lesser drivers might have crumbled. Whether Red Bull see it the same way, or whether this is simply a logistical fix that disappears the moment Hadjar is fit again, remains to be seen. Knowing Red Bull, probably the latter. But sport has a habit of complicating tidy plans, and Zandvoort has already rewritten Lawson’s story once before.
