Liam Lawson Gets a Third Straight Red Bull Race in Madrid as Isack Hadjar’s Wrist Injury Drags On

• Liam Lawson will drive for Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen for a third straight race in Madrid as Isack Hadjar continues to recover from a fractured wrist
• Hadjar suffered the hairline fracture in a boxing workout over the summer break and has already missed the Dutch and Italian Grands Prix, with Madrid now set to be a third
• Lawson qualified within a tenth of Verstappen at Zandvoort and finished seventh there, a sharp contrast to his brief, difficult Red Bull stint at the start of 2025

Watch every race of the 2026 season live on Apple TV

Lawson’s Second Chance at Red Bull Just Got Extended Again

Red Bull will field Liam Lawson alongside Max Verstappen for a third consecutive race weekend at this week’s Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, with Isack Hadjar still not fit to return from a wrist injury picked up over the summer break.

Hadjar suffered a hairline fracture in his wrist in a boxing workout, an injury that has now cost him three straight race weekends: the Dutch Grand Prix, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and now Formula 1’s first ever visit to Madrid’s new Madring circuit.

Hadjar’s absence has real consequences for Red Bull beyond the immediate result. He was brought in as Verstappen’s teammate for 2026, and the longer he stays out of the car, the more his rookie season becomes defined by an injury that had nothing to do with a racetrack. Red Bull’s language in Monday’s statement, that Hadjar is “progressing positively” but not yet ready, leaves no firm date for his return, and Madrid becomes the third weekend in a row where the team has had to plan around his absence rather than his form.

Red Bull Confirms the Call

Red Bull announced the decision in a statement on Monday, describing it as a continuation of Hadjar’s recovery timeline rather than any change in plan.

“After racing for the team in Zandvoort and Monza, Liam will continue to drive alongside Max at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid,” the statement read. “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 Red Bull Racing looks forward to welcoming Isack back behind the wheel very soon.”

Yuki Tsunoda continues alongside Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls, the seat Lawson vacated when he moved up to partner Verstappen at Zandvoort. The arrangement means Red Bull’s driver pairing at the senior team has now changed shape three times this year without Verstappen’s own seat ever being in question, a stability Red Bull locked in for the long term when he signed a contract extension through 2030 last month.

From Dropped After Two Races to Within a Tenth of Verstappen

The contrast with Lawson’s last Red Bull opportunity is stark. He was dropped by the team after just two races at the start of 2025. This time, at Zandvoort, he qualified only a tenth of a second behind Verstappen and finished the race seventh, his strongest weekend after returning to the senior team.

Monza was tougher. Lawson went out in Q2, partly a result of being impeded by Oscar Piastri on his best lap, and started from the pit lane after taking engine penalties. He then made contact with Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg at the standing restart, forcing a front wing change, and recovered to 14th while Verstappen finished on the podium. Across his two most recent race weekends, Lawson has scored P7 and P14, while Tsunoda has recorded P11 and P10 in the sister car.

The two Red Bull-affiliated drivers remain close in the championship, and one of them has missed three straight races to get there. Hadjar sits eighth in the standings on 71 points, one place and 20 points ahead of Lawson in ninth on 51. Both figures put them comfortably clear of the rest of the midfield, a measure of how competitive the pair have been whenever either has been in the car this season.

Tsunoda Still Chasing a 2027 Seat

Tsunoda, who was himself dropped by Red Bull last season, has quietly put together two solid weekends back at Racing Bulls, finishing ahead of Lindblad in the Netherlands before taking a point in 10th at Monza, a result now facing a possible appeal from Audi over a restart incident involving his car. Asked before the Italian Grand Prix whether he expected calls about a 2027 seat, the 26 year old kept his answer open.

“I’m free! Would love to hear those calls, but not yet,” Tsunoda said. “It’s good that things are going positive, at least. Obviously, my primary target is to be in Formula 1. Let’s see. In this world anything can happen. At the same time, it’s also knowing that it’s not easy to have a seat.”

For now, the seat alongside Verstappen belongs to Lawson for at least one more weekend. Madrid’s tight, corner-heavy layout is unfamiliar to every driver on the grid, which levels the field in a way few other tracks can. For a driver who spent the first half of last year wondering if he would get another shot at Red Bull, that is exactly the kind of test he needed.

An Unfamiliar Track for Everyone, Including Verstappen

Nobody on the current grid has raced at the new Madring circuit before, which strips away the usual experience advantage that established Red Bull and Racing Bulls regulars might otherwise hold over a stand-in driver. The layout is widely expected to reward cars that are strong through a high number of corners rather than in a straight line, a very different profile from Monza, where Mercedes’ power deployment gave Antonelli and Russell the edge.

That unpredictability cuts both ways for Lawson. A clean weekend against Verstappen on a track nobody has data for would be the clearest evidence yet that his Zandvoort form was not a one-off. A difficult one would arrive at a moment when Red Bull is actively deciding, race by race, how much longer to keep him in the car. Either way, Hadjar’s recovery means Lawson is racing not just for results, but for time behind the wheel he was not guaranteed to get again after being axed from the same seat at the start of last season.

Every team arrives in Madrid with nothing but simulator work to go on, a blank slate that is rare in modern Formula 1, where most circuits have been raced dozens or even hundreds of times. For Lawson, it removes one more excuse and one more advantage held by the drivers around him, leaving raw pace and racing instinct to settle the argument he started building at Zandvoort.

Want more F1Chronicle.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for the best F1 news and analysis on the internet.

More F1 Reading

• Kimi Antonelli’s Monza Masterclass Puts Him 66 Points Clear, but Mercedes Warn the Title Fight Is Far From Over
• Lewis Hamilton Demands Ferrari ‘Change’ How It Handles His Battles With Charles Leclerc After Monza Meltdown
• Kimi Antonelli Calls Stunning Monza Win From 19th on the Grid a ‘Dream Coming True’
• Lewis Hamilton Calls Monza Result ‘Devastating’ as Ferrari’s Home Race Falls Apart at Turn 2

Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

More articles by Jack Renn →