Liam Lawson Retains Red Bull Seat for Italian Grand Prix

Liam Lawson will stay in the Red Bull hot seat alongside Max Verstappen for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, with Isack Hadjar ruled out again as he continues his recovery from a wrist injury.

Red Bull confirmed the decision overnight, ending any lingering hope Hadjar had of making a rapid return.

Lawson stays, Hadjar waits

Hadjar had spoken optimistically about being back in the car for Sunday’s race, but the clock beat him. He will now miss a second consecutive Grand Prix, his comeback pushed back again by a wrist that simply isn’t ready for the forces of an F1 weekend.

“Liam will drive alongside Max at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, while Isack continues to make encouraging progress following the wrist injury sustained during the summer break,” the team said on social media, adding that it would take “no unnecessary risks” with his return and wished him a speedy recovery.

There is still no indication from Red Bull whether Hadjar can target next week’s Spanish Grand Prix, leaving his short-term future in limbo.

Tsunoda returns, pecking order reshuffled

Lawson’s promotion keeps the dominoes in motion further down the Red Bull ladder. With the New Zealander retained in the senior team, Yuki Tsunoda will get a second outing with Racing Bulls in Lawson’s usual seat.

It is another opportunity for Tsunoda to reassert himself in the Red Bull ecosystem after being dropped by the main team in December and only recently finding his way back onto the grid. In his first race back, at the Dutch Grand Prix, he finished 11th, just outside the points but solid after a long layoff.

The Dutch weekend also underlined how sharply Hadjar’s momentum has been checked. He spent that race on the sidelines, wrist brace on, after injuring himself days earlier during a boxing workout. Watching from the garage instead of the cockpit clearly grated.

“It’s my first injury ever in my whole existence, career, whatever. It’s weird to be on the bench and I’m not happy about it,” he admitted in a team video from Zandvoort. “It’s not swollen, which is a good sign. It’s healing fast. Every day I have a bit more mobility and I’m hopeful for Monza.”

Monza, though, will go ahead without him.

Lawson’s resurgence

While Hadjar waits, Lawson is making the most of the opening. He stepped up from Racing Bulls at Zandvoort and delivered a composed drive to seventh, banking valuable points and reminding Red Bull of his race-day maturity.

This season has been his strongest in Formula 1. Lawson sits ninth in the championship, one place behind Hadjar, but with almost double the tally of Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad. That body of work has forced Red Bull to look again at a driver it had already cast aside once, having dropped him after just two races in 2025.

Now he arrives at Monza not as a stopgap, but as a man with momentum, a driver suddenly back in the conversation.

For Hadjar, the message is clear: heal fully, or risk losing hard-won ground in one of the most unforgiving talent pipelines in motorsport.