Hadjar misses a third race as Lawson keeps the Red Bull
The Frenchman's wrist fracture rules him out of Madrid's inaugural F1 race, handing Lawson a third consecutive start in the RB22.
Isack Hadjar will miss a third consecutive grand prix. Red Bull confirmed on Monday that Liam Lawson keeps the second RB22 for the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring, after Hadjar broke his wrist boxing during the summer break.
In this article
- Red Bull put no date on the return
- Marquez told him not to race and Red Bull backed him
- A tenth off Verstappen at Zandvoort, and seventh in the race
- A broken front wing turned Monza into fourteenth
- Audi are appealing the point Tsunoda took at Monza
- Our view: an audition for a seat that may already be spoken for
Red Bull put no date on the return
The statement was short and it committed to nothing. “After racing for the team in Zandvoort and Monza, Liam will continue to drive alongside Max at this week’s Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid,” Red Bull said. “The decision has been taken as Isack’s recovery continues to progress positively. While he is not yet ready to return to the cockpit, he will be in Madrid supporting the team. Everyone at Oracle Red Bull Racing looks forward to welcoming Isack back behind the wheel very soon.”
Nobody in the paddock will have been surprised. Team principal Laurent Mekies had already closed the door on a Madrid comeback on the Friday at Monza, telling Canal+ that “Madrid is a few days from now, so that’s tricky.”
The injury is a very fine hairline fracture in the wrist, sustained while boxing as part of his routine training in the summer break. It is the sort of break that heals on its own schedule rather than the calendar’s, and Red Bull have consistently refused to name a target date. What they have now is a two-week gap between Madrid and Azerbaijan, which is the first genuinely useful stretch of recovery time Hadjar has had since the injury.
Marquez told him not to race and Red Bull backed him
The decision-making here has been unusually patient by Red Bull standards, and part of the reason is a phone call. Hadjar sought advice from MotoGP champion Marc Marquez, whose own career has been shaped by a wrist and arm injury that kept coming back after he tried to race through it. Marquez was direct: do not race in that condition.
Hadjar took the advice. He sat out Zandvoort, then Monza, and now Madrid. For a driver in his first season at the senior team, sitting out three rounds in a row is a real cost. It is also the version of this story where nothing worse happens.
A tenth off Verstappen at Zandvoort, and seventh in the race
Lawson made the strongest possible first impression. Dropped into an unfamiliar car with almost no preparation, he qualified eighth at Zandvoort, just over a tenth of a second behind Max Verstappen, and finished seventh despite picking up a late penalty for a yellow flag infringement after Esteban Ocon’s retirement.
Mekies did not hide what he thought of it. “It’s a very very strong demonstration that Liam has been doing this weekend,” he said. “One tenth from Max, jumping to a team from another.” He added that Lawson “took the points of the seventh place, and that’s probably the best he could have done today.”
A broken front wing turned Monza into fourteenth
Monza read as a collapse and was mostly bad luck. Lawson went out in Q2 after Oscar Piastri impeded him at Turn 1 on his final run, an incident that cost Piastri three grid places. Red Bull then took him out of parc ferme for changes to the car, which meant a pit lane start.
The race ended at the first restart. Lawson made contact with Nico Hulkenberg at Turn 1, then the two touched again at Turn 4, and the Red Bull’s front wing broke. The repair stop cost around thirty seconds, and because most of the field did not pit under the virtual safety car that followed later, there was no cheap way back.
“I probably did it to him,” Lawson said of the second contact. “I lost my mirror, so I couldn’t see on the right-hand side of my car. But if I squeezed him, which maybe I did, I didn’t mean to.” He finished fourteenth. Verstappen finished third.
Audi are appealing the point Tsunoda took at Monza
The knock-on effect runs down the Red Bull ladder. With Lawson at the senior team, Yuki Tsunoda has stepped out of his reserve role and back into the Racing Bulls car alongside Arvid Lindblad. He finished eleventh at Zandvoort and tenth at Monza, which is a point for a driver who lost his seat at the end of last year.
That point is not safe. Audi have lodged an intention to appeal the stewards’ decision not to penalise Tsunoda over the aborted start at Monza, where he approached his grid box from the wrong direction before correcting himself. The stewards ruled that the extra formation lap came from the race director’s judgement rather than from the driver. Gabriel Bortoleto finished eleventh, seven seconds behind Tsunoda, and Audi want the position.
Our view: an audition for a seat that may already be spoken for
Madrid is the best circumstance Lawson could have asked for. Nobody has raced at the Madring, so the reference data that normally separates a regular from a stand-in does not exist. Everyone arrives blind. If he is going to shake off the substitute label, this is the weekend to do it.
The complication is what he would be auditioning for. Mekies has spoken about Hadjar in terms that sound settled, calling a 2027 decision on him “a logical decision” and describing him as the strong second driver Red Bull have lacked for years. Racing Bulls are reported to lean towards keeping Lawson, but Nikola Tsolov is next in the queue and leading Formula 2. Three good weekends in the RB22 change how Lawson is discussed. They do not obviously change who is under contract.
Practice at the Madring starts on Friday at 13:30 local time, with the race on Sunday at 15:00. We will be covering the weekend on our live blog, and the current order is on the 2026 championship standings page.
