Red Bull has kept Isack Hadjar for 2027. The team confirmed on Wednesday morning that the Frenchman will stay alongside Max Verstappen next season, and it chose its moment carefully: the announcement came on the eve of his return from a fractured wrist at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, after three races on the sidelines. Team principal Laurent Mekies called extending the contract “an easy decision”. For a seat that has chewed through drivers for most of the past decade, that is a rare sentence.
The announcement
“Isack has been superb on and off track, especially considering this is only his second Formula 1 season,” Mekies said. He described the weeks since the injury as difficult for Hadjar and said the extension showed how much the team believes in him. Hadjar called the renewed trust a privilege. Red Bull’s 2027 line-up is now settled, which makes it the first of the front-running teams to lock in both seats for next season.
Why Red Bull didn’t wait
The obvious alternative was to let Liam Lawson’s three-race audition run its course. Lawson did a tidy job in the senior car with no preparation at all: seventh at Zandvoort, sixth in Madrid, and a Monza weekend ruined by an engine penalty and front wing damage. Red Bull has decided that tidy is not the benchmark. Before the injury, Hadjar was averaging 6.5 points a race over the first 11 rounds, and The Race rated him the closest team-mate Verstappen has had since Daniel Ricciardo. He is eighth in the championship on 71 points, still ahead of Lawson’s 59 despite missing three weekends.
There is also the question of what a Red Bull contract is worth to a driver’s head. Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Pérez and Lawson himself all found the second seat harder to hold than to win. Announcing Hadjar’s future before he gets back in the car removes the pressure of driving for his job in a physically punishing triple-header. It is a sign that Red Bull, under Mekies, has learned something from how it handled his predecessors.
The injury, and the comeback
Hadjar broke his wrist in a gym session shortly before the Dutch Grand Prix. Red Bull refused to rush him, and our Hadjar injury explainer tracked every update. He has been cleared for Baku, a circuit he says demands that a driver is “locked in from the very start of the weekend”, with heavy braking zones and walls that punish a wrist that is anything less than fully healed. It is the first race of a triple-header with Malaysia and Singapore, so the next three weekends will test his fitness as much as his speed. “It’s the first time in my life that I’ve not been racing,” he said. “That’s a weird feeling to get used to.”
What it means for Lawson and Racing Bulls
Lawson goes back to Racing Bulls this weekend, and Yuki Tsunoda returns to reserve duties. The next decision is Racing Bulls’ 2027 pairing. Rookie Arvid Lindblad is virtually certain to stay after a strong first season, which we rated in our rookie report card. The other seat is where the pressure sits. Red Bull has Nikola Tsolov, a Formula 2 title contender, waiting for a debut, and Racing Bulls describes having too many good drivers as a “nice problem”. Lawson’s stand-in results give him a strong case. They may not be enough.
What it means for Verstappen
Stability, at least. Verstappen confirmed this month that he talked to Mercedes and McLaren before re-signing with Red Bull, and one of his conditions for staying was a team that stopped reinventing itself every six months. A settled team-mate for 2027 helps. The bigger problem is the car: Red Bull has admitted that the rear-axle issue Verstappen has complained about all year, the one behind his “car made of paper” remark at Monza, cannot be fully fixed until 2027. Our analysis of Red Bull’s 2026 slump covers why.
Frequently asked questions
Who will drive for Red Bull in 2027?
Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar. Red Bull confirmed Hadjar’s extension on 23 September 2026.
When does Isack Hadjar return from injury?
At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday 26 September, after missing the Dutch, Italian and Spanish Grands Prix with a fractured wrist.
Where does Liam Lawson go now?
Back to Racing Bulls for the rest of 2026. His 2027 seat has not been confirmed.
How many points has Hadjar scored in 2026?
71 points from 11 races, eighth in the championship after 14 rounds.
