Wrist injury to Hadjar sets off a three driver shuffle at Red Bull for the final Zandvoort race

[Cole_25]

Formula 1 returns from its summer break this weekend for the Dutch Grand Prix, and the paddock's biggest story heading into Zandvoort has nothing to do with the championship fight and everything to do with a gym injury. Red Bull confirmed that Isack Hadjar sustained a wrist injury during a boxing session over the summer shutdown, ruling him out of what is set to be the final Dutch Grand Prix on the current calendar, and setting off a driver reshuffle that reaches across both Red Bull-affiliated teams on the grid.

Liam Lawson is stepping back into the senior Red Bull seat alongside Max Verstappen for the weekend, a genuinely notable moment for a driver whose F1 story has been unusually turbulent even by the standards of Red Bull's famously unforgiving junior program. Lawson made his debut at this exact same circuit back in 2023, called up after Daniel Ricciardo broke his own wrist in a practice crash, and he only got a full time promotion to the senior team at the start of 2025 before being demoted back to Racing Bulls after just two rounds. He has rebuilt his reputation impressively since then, sitting ninth in the drivers' championship with points in all but three of Racing Bulls' eleven races this season and helping push the team up to fifth in the constructors' standings.

With Lawson vacating his Racing Bulls seat, Yuki Tsunoda steps back into a race weekend for the first time since losing his own full time Red Bull drive at the end of last season. Tsunoda has spent 2026 serving as reserve driver for both Red Bull-affiliated teams, and this weekend gives him a genuine opportunity to remind the paddock what he can do in race conditions rather than simulator work, lining up alongside British rookie Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls for what both teams have described as a straightforward one weekend swap rather than any kind of permanent change.

The timing carries extra weight given what this weekend actually represents. Zandvoort is hosting the Dutch Grand Prix for the final time under its current contract, meaning Verstappen will be racing at what amounts to a home event for potentially the last occasion of his career, even as he sits winless through the first half of this season and trails championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli by a substantial margin in the standings. Both teams issued brief, gracious statements wishing Hadjar a speedy recovery and thanking Lawson and Tsunoda for their flexibility on short notice, with neither organization offering further detail on the exact nature or severity of the wrist injury itself.

With F1's summer break now over and the championship fight entering its second half, this kind of unplanned reshuffle right at the reopening weekend adds a genuinely unpredictable wrinkle to a Red Bull operation that was already navigating a challenging season on pure competitive terms. How Lawson performs back in the senior car, and whether this ends up being a strictly one off weekend appearance or the first sign of a more lasting change, are exactly the kind of subplots that tend to define how a Grand Prix weekend actually gets remembered once the racing itself gets underway.

Hadjar to miss Dutch GP as Lawson steps upwww.formula1.com