Ted Kravitz believes Red Bull have made an early decision on Liam Lawson’s F1 future

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Ted Kravitz thinks he knows Racing Bulls’ line-up for the 2026 season, with Liam Lawson ‘probably’ keeping his seat.

The message coming out of Red Bull, who are responsible for the driver decisions, was that the 2026 Racing Bulls duo would be chosen after Qatar. That gave those involved one more chance to prove themselves.

However, Kravitz thinks the direction of travel at Faenza is already clear. Yuki Tsunoda has been targeting a return to his former team, his only hope of staying on the grid.

It’s long been clear that Isack Hadjar will step up to Red Bull after a magnificent rookie campaign.

Ted Kravitz expects Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad to form Racing Bulls line-up

Hadjar’s demeanour during his Thursday media duties hinted that he’d finally received confirmation. The visibly ‘excited’ Frenchman would only divulge that he will be staying on the grid.

Kravitz has learned that Red Bull also informed Tsunoda that he would be leaving the team. His expression was one of ‘disappointment’.

And it’s about to get even worse for the Japanese driver, likely to exit F1 altogether. It seems Lawson’s place is already secure, and Red Bull want to promote Arvid Lindblad to the second Racing Bulls seat.

“I can save you the announcement that all these nice people on the socials are going to make next week that Isack Hadjar will be joining Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing,” Kravitz said on his Sky Sports ‘Notebook’. “They’ve both been told.

“Yuki’s been told, Isack’s been told. Isack couldn’t contain his excitement when he came to us on Thursday. Yuki couldn’t contain his disappointment.

“We don’t know who’s going to be joining Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls. We think it’s probably going to be Arvid Lindblad, leaving Yuki Tsunoda out of Formula 1.

“But all will become clear next week, if I haven’t given it all away already.”

David Coulthard hints that Yuki Tsunoda joined Red Bull in the wrong year

Lawson has outscored and outperformed Tsunoda since they swapped seats in March, which appears to defy logic. The theory is that the Racing Bulls car is more compliant than the Red Bull, explaining why drivers so often look better in the midfield team.

Ahead of Sunday’s Feature Race, Lindblad sits seventh in the F2 championship. Promoting the 18-year-old would be a gamble but Red Bull want drivers who have upward mobility.

Jolyon Palmer has suggested that Tsunoda doesn’t deserve to be in F1 next year, but David Coulthard was more sympathetic. The 2021 debutant was only three-tenths off Verstappen in Q1 in Qatar, but that still saw him eliminated.

“It’s a sign of the times that three-tenths on what is a very meaty race track, you would normally say that’s not too bad,” Coulthard said of the deficit. “But it is not enough in modern Formula 1 to carry you through. How happy are we that we were not racing at this time!”

Tsunoda had impressed in the Sprint section of the weekend, qualifying a season-high fifth and holding position in the race despite a penalty for track limits. It seems this has come too late to change the minds of Laurent Mekies and Helmut Marko.