Verstappen can celebrate: Red Bull finally has a replacement for Ricciardo

Since Daniel Ricciardo’s departure at the end of 2018, Red Bull Racing has been searching for a replacement for the cheerful Australian, but aside from a few strong races from Sergio Perez, no one has even come close to Verstappen. For years, it left Red Bull completely dependent on the Dutchman.

How different things were between 2016 and 2018, when Red Bull arguably had one of the strongest, if not the strongest, driver pairings. With Ricciardo and Verstappen in the car, every weekend was maximized. If one wasn’t feeling it, the other would perform—and vice versa.

In 2018, that balance increasingly tipped in Verstappen’s favor, aided by Ricciardo’s many retirements. With the Honda deal on the horizon and Verstappen growing stronger, Ricciardo chose to cut his losses. Since then, Red Bull’s driver pairing has never been as strong.

It started with Pierre Gasly, who managed to wad up his car twice already during winter testing in Barcelona. The Frenchman crashed more often during the season and refused to copy Verstappen’s setup. Red Bull management quickly had enough and sent the Frenchman back to Toro Rosso.

At Toro Rosso, Alexander Albon had barely half a year of F1 experience before he was promoted to the seat next to Verstappen. Albon was more consistent than his predecessor and more open-minded. It earned him more time and credit, but he too was dropped after a year and a half.

With Albon, it wasn’t so much crashes that caused the split—Albon performed consistently. However, it was consistently much slower than Verstappen, which meant Red Bull simply lost too many points in the championship. For 2021, Red Bull therefore chose experience with Sergio Perez, who had just won his very first F1 race.

With his experience, Perez also performed consistently alongside Verstappen and was clearly an upgrade over the Thai driver. But was it enough? That question never disappeared during the four seasons Perez was active for Red Bull Racing.

Perez had good periods, but alternated them far more often with long stretches where he underperformed. He started the 2023 season very strongly and expressed his wish to become world champion. After the Miami GP, however, the Mexican fell back sharply. In 2024, Perez’s performances collapsed completely. Red Bull as a team kept slipping, but Verstappen still became world champion. Perez finished no higher than eighth in the drivers’ standings.

And so something had to change at Red Bull Racing for 2025. After first extending his contract, Red Bull had to buy out Perez’s deal and chose Liam Lawson over Yuki Tsunoda for 2025. Lawson was said to have shown more potential than the more experienced Tsunoda.

The choice turned out disastrously. Lawson wasn’t a few tenths, but seconds slower than Verstappen in the Red Bull. After two(!!) Grands Prix, Red Bull already took drastic action. Lawson was dropped, and suddenly Tsunoda was deemed good enough for the seat alongside Verstappen—possibly helped by a financial contribution from Honda.

Tsunoda started off decently at Red Bull Racing, but over a longer period he failed to impress as well. Verstappen narrowly missed out on the world title, while Tsunoda scored a meager 30 points, finishing 12th in the standings.

At Racing Bulls, Hadjar showed himself as a Red Bull talent who might indeed be ready for the role of Max Verstappen’s teammate. Hadjar had a fantastic rookie year in Formula 1, despite plenty of doubts beforehand about the hot-tempered Frenchman. Hadjar, however, delivered great results, including a podium in Zandvoort.

And yet, the question remained how well Hadjar would perform alongside Max Verstappen. So many drivers had gone before him and failed to deliver, but Hadjar did have an idea of how to approach it. Unlike his predecessor, Hadjar said, he would accept that Verstappen is simply faster.

The approach seems to be paying off. In Australia, Hadjar did exactly what Red Bull needs from its second driver: maximize when Verstappen has bad luck. In qualifying, Hadjar stepped up and secured third place. Ahead of the supposedly stronger Ferraris and McLarens.

And that after a far-from-flawless winter test. Many of Red Bull’s problems actually occurred when Hadjar was in the car. As a result, he spent more time in the garage than he would have liked, in preparation for a season with completely new cars and engines.

There were plenty of excuses to justify a weaker performance from Hadjar, but they weren’t needed. Hadjar adapted lightning-fast to the new car and did what he had to do: be close to Verstappen in every session so that if Verstappen has a stroke of bad luck, Red Bull doesn’t immediately score 0 points.

Things then didn’t go his way in the race. At the start, Hadjar, like Verstappen, had an empty battery, and later in the race he retired with an engine issue. However, it didn’t dampen the spirits at Red Bull. Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies was very happy with the performance of his new protégé and saw a big advantage for Red Bull.

Hadjar will surely still make his mistakes as a Red Bull driver, but Red Bull finally has two drivers again who can make the team stronger together. For years, the data from the second driver was barely utilized because the lap times were not competitive at all. With Hadjar in the car, that’s possible again, and in a year where the development of the car and engine is crucial, this comes as a godsend for Red Bull and Verstappen.