Lawson back at Red Bull after Hadjar injury

Liam Lawson has been handed an unexpected return to Red Bull Racing for this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix, stepping in for Isack Hadjar after the Frenchman suffered a wrist injury during the summer break.

Hadjar, who has been on a strong upward trajectory in his debut season with the senior team, was ruled out of the Zandvoort round on Wednesday. The 20-year-old sustained the injury while training during his time off, and Red Bull decided to take no risks with his recovery.

"Isack is alright," said team principal Laurent Mekies. "He suffered a minor injury in the summer break while training. He's going to arrive actually tomorrow at the track. We have no reason to take any risk with him. He has done a fantastic start of the season, he has been stronger and stronger every time he has been driving this car. We take zero risk, we let him sort out the recovery this weekend, and hopefully we'll have him very, very quickly back in the car."

Lawson's promotion means Yuki Tsunoda moves up from his simulator role to take Lawson's seat at Racing Bulls alongside rookie Arvid Lindblad — another twist in the ever-evolving Red Bull driver programme.

From holiday to Red Bull in 24 hours

Lawson revealed he had barely stepped off his plane from holiday on Monday when he received the call from Red Bull sporting director Alan Permane.

"I just landed on Monday from the break, being on holiday. I had a call, literally I hadn't even left the plane yet and I was speaking to Alan, and basically they let me know," the 24-year-old said. "The week quickly changed from what it was going to be to Red Bull prep."

The New Zealander has been in the form of his life so far in 2026, scoring points in six of the last seven Grands Prix to sit ninth in the standings as best of the rest behind the top four teams. His strong performances came after the disappointment of being demoted from Red Bull just two races into the 2025 season — a rapid-fire promotion and demotion that many felt was harsh.

Lawson, however, played down any sense of vindication at getting a second chance with the senior team.

"Honestly, it feels like a long time ago and it's such a different circumstance now as well, obviously now being one week," he said. "I haven't really looked at it like that. For me we've had a really good year so far, and obviously I'm grateful to have been chosen for something like this."

'It's going to be challenging'

Lawson acknowledged the difficulty of adapting to a different car at a sprint weekend, with limited practice time before sprint qualifying on Friday.

"It's going to be a very challenging weekend, for sure. It's a Sprint weekend, so it's going to be a quick learning process tomorrow," he said. "That's what we tried to do yesterday in the simulator. If we can try and speed up that learning process as much as possible, then that would help our weekend."

Mekies believes Lawson's recall is well deserved after the way he rebuilt his career following last year's demotion.

"It's been a very difficult first two races last year for him with the team. I'm sure it was not the end that he deserved," Mekies said. "If we look at how he has managed to reconstruct from there, to rebuild, and the level of performance he has been showing ever since, consistently, with the old generation of car, with this generation of car, I think it's very well deserved that he gets that chance."

In qualifying for Sunday's grand prix, Lawson finished eighth on the grid — just one tenth behind Verstappen — an impressive showing given the limited time to adapt to the RB22.