Hadjar Returns for Baku: Inside the Three Races Lawson and Tsunoda Raced in His Place

A broken wrist during the summer break was all it took to set off a chain of replacements that ended up affecting three different drivers, two teams, and three full Grands Prix. Isack Hadjar is back in Baku this week after missing the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, and his return closes out one of the more unusual chapters of the season: the one where Liam Lawson got a second chance that looked buried, and where Yuki Tsunoda, sidelined from Formula 1 since late 2025, resurfaced out of nowhere for three races that ended up being far more than a simple formality.

A Training Injury That Started It All

It all began during the summer break, when Hadjar injured his wrist training, right before the season resumed at Zandvoort. For the 21-year-old Frenchman, the timing couldn’t have been worse: he headed into that break eighth in the championship, on a run of seven consecutive points-scoring Grands Prix and a podium finish at Monaco, in what had been shaping up as a genuine season of consolidation at Red Bull. The injury kept him out of three straight races, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, and cost him something that isn’t easy to make up: track time learning the RB22, the new-regulation car every team is still getting to grips with.

Red Bull moved fast. Liam Lawson, who’d been racing for Racing Bulls, stepped up into the senior team’s seat alongside Max Verstappen. And to avoid leaving a gap at Racing Bulls, Yuki Tsunoda himself, demoted from the top team at the end of 2025 and without a fixed grid seat, got back into a Formula 1 car after months out of competition, racing alongside rookie Arvid Lindblad.

Zandvoort: The First Test for Both Stand-Ins

In the Netherlands, Lawson made his return to the seat with a seventh-place finish that banked solid points. Tsunoda, who hadn’t even driven the 2026 car outside the simulator before this emergency call-up, answered with a creditable 11th, just outside the points but a genuinely strong showing given the circumstances.

Monza: Bad Luck Robbed Lawson of a Better Result

In Italy, Lawson finished 14th, a result that doesn’t look impressive on paper, but team boss Laurent Mekies later clarified the New Zealander would likely have repeated something close to his Zandvoort result had it not been for contact with Nico Hülkenberg that left his car damaged. Tsunoda, meanwhile, found his first genuinely positive result of this improvised comeback: tenth place, scoring his first point of the season in this second life as a Formula 1 driver.

Madrid: Each Stand-In’s Best and Worst Afternoon, on the Same Day

The round at the new Madring produced the sharpest contrast of the three weekends. Lawson delivered his best performance of the whole stretch: sixth place, 86.159 seconds off the winner, confirming his adaptation at Red Bull had been genuinely solid rather than a one-off stroke of luck. Mekies was especially complimentary about it, pointing out just how difficult it is to jump into a different team and car weekend to weekend, and noting the Kiwi had handled it about as well as could reasonably have been expected.

For Tsunoda, on the other hand, Madrid turned into a nightmare. Contact from Carlos Sainz at the first corner left his car seriously damaged, and from there the race was effectively over, he finished 14th, no points, after qualifying just 15th, well off the pace his teammate Lindblad had shown, who reached Q3 and finished ninth to score points. Tsunoda himself admitted afterward the race had effectively ended right there with the contact, leaving him with heavy damage and little real chance of clawing back ground on a circuit where overtaking was already extremely difficult even with a healthy car.

What This Story Meant for Each of Them

Beyond the numbers, these three races meant something different for each of the drivers involved. For Hadjar, a forced break at exactly the moment he was performing best, with the added frustration of missing out on car development in a year where understanding the RB22 matters more than ever. For Lawson, the chance to rewrite the story of his own brief earlier stint at Red Bull, just two races in 2025 before being sent back down to Racing Bulls, this time with performances that actually convinced the team. And for Tsunoda, sidelined from the top level since the end of last year, an unexpected opportunity to remind the grid he’s still a competitive driver, right as rumours already circulate about his interest in joining Cadillac down the road.

The Official Confirmation: Hadjar’s Back, Everything Returns to Its Place

This week, Red Bull officially confirmed Hadjar is ready to return to action at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku. The team’s statement was direct: following a successful recovery from his wrist injury, Isack returns to action at the Baku City Circuit from this Thursday. With his return, Lawson goes back to Racing Bulls alongside young Lindblad, and Tsunoda, for now at least, is left without a seat once again.

Mekies himself had been clear weeks earlier about the team’s approach to this return: there was no rush to force Hadjar back before he was ready, prioritizing a complete recovery over any calendar pressure. An evaluation simulator session served as the final step before giving the definitive green light.

Combined Results — The Three Replacement Races (2026)

Key Quotes

• Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Team Principal, on Hadjar’s recovery timeline: he stated there is nothing wrong with the pace of the recovery, describing it as a fundamentally normal timeframe for this type of wrist injury.
• Mekies, on the approach going forward: he explained the team doesn’t want an early return to compromise Hadjar’s long-term capacity to come back at 100 percent.
• Mekies, on Lawson’s performances as substitute: he said Lawson has done a very good job, acknowledging how difficult it is to jump into a different team and a different car, and noted this is a very different picture compared to Lawson’s difficult start with the team in early 2025.
• Yuki Tsunoda, on his damaged race in Madrid: he described the race as pretty much finished by the first-lap contact, losing a lot of positions and facing a pressuring afternoon despite having decent pace to the car ahead.

Curiosities

• Isack Hadjar sustained his wrist injury during off-season training over the summer break, just before the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix.
• Before the injury, Hadjar sat eighth in the championship standings, on a run of seven consecutive points finishes including a podium finish at the Monaco Grand Prix.
• Liam Lawson previously had a brief, difficult stint at Red Bull’s senior team at the start of the 2025 season, lasting only two races before being demoted back to Racing Bulls, making this substitute run something of a redemption arc.
• Yuki Tsunoda had not driven the actual 2026-specification car outside of the simulator before being called up for the Dutch Grand Prix, having lost his senior Red Bull seat at the end of 2025.
• A similar wrist-injury comeback in F1 history involved Lance Stroll, who fractured his wrist in a cycling accident ahead of the 2023 season, missed pre-season testing, but still raced and scored points in the opening round.
• Arvid Lindblad, the rookie who partnered both substitute drivers across these three races at Racing Bulls, outscored Tsunoda across the Spanish Grand Prix weekend despite crashing in both FP2 and FP3.

What do you think?

Did Lawson do enough in these three races to secure a more solid future within the Red Bull setup, or was this just a fleeting window before everything returns to the status quo? Let us know your thoughts in the forum comments, and if this story of three drivers whose paths crossed due to a single injury hooked you, share it on social media before the action kicks off in Baku.

Sources: Formula1.com, RacingNews365, GPFans, Crash.net, Sky Sports, The Race, F1oversteer