Red Bull will be promoting two of its young drivers in 2025 after it finally parted ways with Sergio Perez at the end of last season.
Liam Lawson will get the opportunity to race in the senior team, while Isack Hadjar will be partnered with Yuki Tsunoda at Racing Bulls.
It will be a big test for Lawson as he goes up against Max Verstappen in the same team, although Helmut Marko thinks that the New Zealander has the mental strength to be successful.
Hadjar makes the step up from F2 having missed out on the title at the final round to Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto, and made his first visit to the Racing Bulls factory recently.
The Frenchman will also be one of four drivers testing with their new F1 teams this week, as teams gear up for the new season. Hadjar is expected to be under pressure from the start, given how cut throat Red Bull can be with drivers who do not perform to their expectations.
But there is another talent waiting in the wings who will be making his debut in F2 this year, and who Marko has already praised in the form of Arvid Lindblad. In an interview with RacingNews365.nl, the British driver outlined what he needs to keep doing to earn an F1 seat in the future potentially.
Arvid Lindblad says impressing Helmut Marko ‘utmost importance’
Lindblad is billed as one of Red Bull’s next great talents, having impressed in Formula 3 last year with four wins to his name.
Marko put Lindblad on a ‘special’ programme over the winter break, which includes him racing in the Formula Regional Oceania Championship. Having already racked up three wins and six podiums, he currently leads the champioship.
Impressing the likes of Marko and Christian Horner is one of the best ways to earn a fast track to F1, something Lindblad is keen to keep doing in 2025.
“It’s great that my results and achievements are appreciated and noticed by Dr. Marko and Christian, because they are very important for my career. They’re the big guys at Red Bull Racing. It is of the utmost importance for my future that I perform well and that they are satisfied,” said Lindblad.
“But to be honest, it’s not really something I’m thinking about. In the end, it’s all kind of noise. If you think about it too much, it can very easily rise to your head. That they say that is good and it shows that they are happy with me at the moment. But things can change very quickly, as we know in motorsport, and them saying now, that alone is not enough to get me into Formula 1.”
Red Bull already told to train Arvid Lindblad ‘as soon as possible’ to avoid crisis
Last year Oliver Bearman had to step in for three races because Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen had to withdraw from Saudi Arabia and Brazil respectively due to illness.
Magnussen was also separately banned from competing in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix due to accumulating too many points on his F1 super licence.
Verstappen will enter the 2025 season on eight penalty points, which puts him four away from the 12 needed to trigger a one-race ban. They do not come down until June for the four-time world champion, while Lawson has at least two and Tsunoda is on a clean slate.
Red Bull has been told that it should train Lindblad in the event they need a reserve driver, as there is now no obvious replacement should they need one in 2025.
