The claim comes from a Speedcafe report suggesting Hadjar’s availability for the Dutch Grand Prix is in doubt. No decision has been announced on whether the 21-year-old will drive on Sunday, and no team statement has been issued. Everything that follows flows from that single, unconfirmed report.

If Hadjar were ruled out, Lawson is said to be first in line to slot in alongside Max Verstappen. Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull’s reserve driver since losing the second seat over the winter, would move across to cover the vacancy at Racing Bulls.

The optics would be extraordinary. Lawson was promoted into the second Red Bull seat for the start of 2025 and dropped after just two race weekends. Tsunoda replaced him, then lost the drive himself to Hadjar for 2026 after the Frenchman’s breakout rookie season, which included a maiden podium at last year’s Dutch Grand Prix.

Zandvoort has form in Lawson’s story

Zandvoort is where Lawson’s Formula 1 career started in the first place. At the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, AlphaTauri handed him his debut after Daniel Ricciardo broke a bone in his left hand in an FP2 crash. Lawson raced through the rain and stayed in the car until Ricciardo was fit again.

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Ninth in the standings and ‘no ghost’ to chase

Lawson sits ninth in the 2026 drivers’ championship on 43 points, with two top-six finishes in Monaco and at Silverstone. Speaking on the eve of the Dutch weekend, he pushed back at the idea that his current form was exorcising memories of that short first Red Bull spell.

“It’s not really a thing for me. I didn’t really have a ghost of last year. I had a tough season. But I learned a huge amount through it, and honestly, I’ve come out of that as a much stronger driver.”

Hadjar, who was announced as Verstappen’s 2026 team-mate over the winter, stands eighth in the standings, one place and a handful of points ahead of his former sister-team stablemate.

What happens next at Zandvoort

The Dutch Grand Prix is a Sprint weekend. The single free practice session runs on Friday, 21 August at 12:30pm local time, with Sprint qualifying that same afternoon. The Sprint race is scheduled for Saturday at 12 noon local time and grand prix qualifying at 4pm local time, ahead of Sunday’s race.

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Any driver change would need FIA sign-off before the car turned a wheel. Until then, the Lawson-to-Red-Bull talk is what it started as: a single report, with no comment yet from either Red Bull or Racing Bulls.

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