The final seat that hasn’t been confirmed for the 2025 Formula 1 season is at Red Bull Racing’s sister team RB.
Currently, RB have signed up Yuki Tsunoda for next season after a brilliant beginning to this year’s campaign.
However, Daniel Ricciardo was replaced by Liam Lawson for the final six rounds of the season after the Australian failed to live up to expectations.
He was re-signed by Christian Horner to provide Red Bull with an alternative to Sergio Perez if his form didn’t improve sufficiently.
And while question marks remain over whether the Mexican is doing a good enough job, Red Bull wanted to give another driver a chance to prove they deserved to be Max Verstappen’s teammate next year.
Lawson has been linked with a promotion to Red Bull for next season, but another driver is also apparently in the mix.
Red Bull are keen on signing Franco Colapinto from Williams, although it’s unclear whether that would be to race alongside Verstappen or at RB with Tsunoda.
Journalist Lawrence Barretto was speaking on the FanAmp YouTube channel and the question of what the Red Bull line-ups will look like next year was posed to him.
Based on his current information, if Lawson does replace Perez, he thinks junior driver Isack Hadjar could be signed by RB instead of Colapinto for 2025.
RB would ‘probably’ sign Isack Hadjar to replace Liam Lawson for next season
Asked whether he believed Colapinto had a chance of being on the grid next season, Barretto said: “I feel for Franco at the minute because when a rookie gets a shot, they often get one shot like Ollie Bearman did in Saudi and then obviously he got another one later in the year.
“So, when you get seven or eight or nine races as Franco’s got but you know the door at the end is shut effectively because Carlos Sainz has got the seat that he’s in currently at the minute, it must be really difficult to turn up every weekend and nail it, knowing that there aren’t that many seats elsewhere on the grid.
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“At the minute, there is only one free and that’s at V-CARB and it looks like at the very least it’s going to be Liam Lawson.
“If not and he gets moved up to the Red Bull seat, then it’s probably going to be Hadjar.
“But I think it’s really interesting that Red Bull are in talks with Williams about the potential of getting Colapinto at some point in the future.”
Why RB might choose to promote Isack Hadjar over signing Franco Colapinto
Red Bull know they have a difficult decision to make very soon but as the only team that still have a vacancy for 2025, they know they can take their time.
In a perfect world, Perez secures a couple of strong results before the end of the season and allays any fears Red Bull currently have about his long-term suitability to partner Verstappen going forward.
However, if they do need to make a change, then promoting Lawson into his seat could benefit the team in several ways.
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The Kiwi would prove that the pathway in the junior team is working, even if Tsunoda’s stagnation at RB suggests that that’s not always the case.
Promoting Hadjar from F2 would do the same thing, particularly as he has outperformed Colapinto this year when they were both racing in the same series.
Colapinto would be an expensive signing for Red Bull if they were to make the move and the team look set to lose out on millions of pounds of expected prize money by not winning the Constructors’ Championship this year.
However, doubts over Hadjar’s readiness for F1 at Red Bull remain, but as Colapinto and Oliver Bearman have shown this season, rookies are more than capable of impressing when given the chance.
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