Max Verstappen replacement offers clue to Red Bull's future plans

The Austrian team are again without the Frenchman and will run the same four drivers as in Zandvoort, with Liam Lawson moving up to Red Bull, and Yuki Tsunoda replacing him at Racing Bulls.

However, there is a fifth Red Bull driver entering the mix, as Ayumu Iwasa will be replacing four-time champion Max Verstappen in Free Practice 1.

FIA regulations state that teams must run a rookie twice per season in each of their cars, and Japanese talent Iwasa is their second of the four.

The news may come as somewhat of a surprise, as the 24-year-old’s Formula 1 prospects aren’t high, given that he left Formula 2 in 2023 with a championship-best finish of fourth.

However, when you consider Red Bull’s new approach to their young drivers under CEO and Team Principal Laurent Mekies, it begins to make more sense.

Nikola Tsolov is seen as next in line in their development programme, and letting him continue his F2 title tilt squares up with how they reacted to Hadjar’s injury.

Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad is seen as the more promising prospect over teammate Liam Lawson, but the team made the decision not to disrupt his first season in F1, allowing him to stay in familiar territory and continue his development.

The same can now be said of Bulgarian Tsolov, who has a 20-point championship lead in F2 and will get to stay with Campos Racing for the entirety of the Monza weekend.

Under the previous leadership team of Christian Horner and Helmut Marko, rookies were often put in more of a 'sink or swim' situation, with this new philosophy a stark contrast.

Furthermore, the 19-year-old Tsolov joined Red Bull in Imola for a private Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) outing last week, giving the team plenty of information on their top prospect.

Tsolov has six wins in F2 this season, but is yet to record a pole position, something he’ll look to correct in Monza.

Recently discussing the talent, Racing Bulls CEO Alan Permane told GPblog and others: “He’s doing incredibly well, he’s now leading the championship.