Visa Cash App Racing Bulls will field the 17th product of the Red Bull Junior Team to graduate to F1 in Isack Hadjar this term, but they already have another star waiting.
Red Bull have dropped Hadjar at Racing Bulls for the 2025 Formula 1 season after promoting fellow academy product Liam Lawson from their junior team into their main team. Lawson is Max Verstappen’s new No2 after replacing Sergio Perez and it created an opening for Hadjar.
Hadjar will even become the 13th Red Bull Junior Team product yet to debut in F1 for Racing Bulls (including when called Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri and RB) when the 20-year-old starts the Australian Grand Prix on March 16. His teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, was the 11th back in 2021.
F2 is ‘the goal’ before Racing Bulls give Red Bull talent Arvid Lindblad more F1 seat time
Racing Bulls serve as a finishing school for Red Bull’s future F1 drivers with the energy drinks company in the exclusive position of owning two teams. Lawson earned a call up to Red Bull in the 2025 F1 season after starting 11 Grands Prix in the last two years for the Faenza crew.
And while Hadjar will now look to make his mark with the Faenza crew this year as the 2024 Formula 2 runner-up, Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies is already looking into the future with Arvid Lindblad already becoming a part of the team ahead of his debut F2 term.
READ MORE: Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad’s life outside F1 from height to parents
| YEAR | RED BULL | RACING BULLS |
| 2019 | Verstappen & Gasly/Albon | Albon/Gasly & Kvyat |
| 2020 | Verstappen & Albon | Gasly & Kvyat |
| 2021 | Verstappen & Perez | Gasly & Tsunoda |
| 2022 | Verstappen & Perez | Gasly & Tsunoda |
| 2023 | Verstappen & Perez | Tsunoda & De Vries/Ricciardo/Lawson |
| 2024 | Verstappen & Perez | Tsunoda & Ricciardo/Lawson |
| 2025 | Verstappen & Lawson | Tsunoda & Hadjar |
“Arvid is the next talent in the Red Bull family,” Mekies told Motorsport.com. “He is 17 years old and we are already using him in the simulator. We had him drive for the first time in a Formula 1 car a few days ago in Imola.
“It is the beginning of a journey, but he is aware that this year he will have to focus on his season in Formula 2. This is the goal, then we will see in the future what opportunities we can offer him to gain more experience behind the wheel of a Formula 1 [car].”
Red Bull are talking about Arvid Lindblad the same way they discussed Max Verstappen
Lindblad drove Racing Bulls’ 2023 car at Imola as the team held a shakedown for their 2025 challenger with Tsunoda and Hadjar ahead of F1 testing in Bahrain. But the teenager had an unfortunate moment in the AlphaTauri AT04 when Lindblad span at Rivazza on a cooling lap.
READ MORE: All to know about Racing Bulls from team principal to Red Bull affiliation
Red Bull want Racing Bulls to start giving Lindblad miles in their F1 cars to prepare him for a potential debut in the future. It is also possible that Lindblad could debut in F1 in 2025 after earning enough points for an FIA superlicence. A mid-season switch is not entirely ruled out.
The British-Swedish talent joined the Red Bull Junior Team back in 2021 and has also now replaced Hadjar at the Campos F2 team after coming fourth in the 2024 F3 standings as a rookie. Red Bull speak about Lindblad in the same way as Verstappen through his rise, too.
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