Red Bull will have its first-choice driver line-up back again at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as Isack Hadjar returns from an injury-enforced three-race spell on the Formula 1 sidelines.
That means Liam Lawson heads back to Racing Bulls after a second (and, incredibly, longer) spell at the senior team, while Yuki Tsunoda takes up his reserve-driver role once more after his F1 2026 cameo.
What did those three races after the summer break tell us about the five drivers in Red Bull's F1 pool? What did it do for their reputations? And where does it leave them for the rest of 2026?
Hadjar needs to join Red Bull's rising tide
Hadjar reclaims his Red Bull seat safe in the knowledge he should eclipse his stand-in Lawson's perfectly adequate job in the circumstances. But his return is not without pressure.
With no prior knowledge of the car, and being bounced between teams yet again, Lawson's point-scoring efforts kept Red Bull's tally ticking over.
That means Hadjar must be returning with the expectation of being at or very close to his best. Otherwise, Red Bull would be making the wrong call for its competitive prospects.
It's also a triple-header that will be physically demanding. It will test his rehabilitation, his concentration, and how sharply he gets back up to speed.
Hadjar's body of work before the summer break was very encouraging. In the first 11 races, he averaged 6.5 points to Verstappen's 9.9. In other words, if Verstappen typically finished fifth, Hadjar would be one or two places behind him.
But Hadjar will be expected to do more than just what he was doing before he had to vacate his seat. In the three races he missed, Verstappen's average rose to 12 points per race despite his crash at Zandvoort, thanks to podiums at Monza and the Madring. Lawson only managed 4.7 per event.
Verstappen has shown the peak is rising for Red Bull, and Hadjar steps back in needing to rise with it. - Scott Mitchell-Malm
Lawson proved he could do the job after all
Lawson's future within the Red Bull F1 empire had looked pretty secure already before the summer break, off the back of a consistent first half to the season for Racing Bulls that had left him the leading driver in the points' standings outside the top four teams.
Yes, there had been a fair deal of hype around Nikola Tsolov off the back of his impressive Formula 2 campaign, but those who worked most closely with Lawson talked of a step change in approach and performance over the winter.
His engineering team in particular liked the way he had, despite his dislike of the 2026 regulations, knuckled down to unleash a fair few tricks in energy management that had pushed the team onwards.
The indications back then were that Racing Bulls had every intention of capitalising on what he was delivering to keep him on alongside Arvid Lindblad for another year. Even in F1, if your driver line-up is not broken, don't fix it.
The surprise opportunity at Red Bull offered Lawson a chance to banish the ghosts of that troubled start of 2025, and in settling in so quickly to a tricky car he proved what those at Racing Bulls already knew.
He did a more than solid job. Twice in the points, with the most difficult weekend being Monza, which was always going to be an uphill battle because he was starting from the back with an engine penalty.
Did he do enough to force a rethink at Red Bull that Lawson is the man they really should have alongside Verstappen? Probably not.
But did he do enough to show that he is exactly what Racing Bulls needs to capitalise on its progress as it aims to top the midfield? Absolutely. - Jon Noble
Tsunoda is still a reliable points scorer
Yuki Tsunoda simply backed up what his previous four full seasons at Red Bull's second team had suggested: he's a reliable points scorer in the right machinery. A bruising season alongside Verstappen has done little to change that.
He was quickly on the pace when he jumped into the 2026 Racing Bulls for the first time at Zandvoort, qualifying only a tenth slower than Lindblad on Saturday.
Tsunoda then picked up the first point of his comeback at Monza despite a disappointing Q1 exit on Saturday and some dodgy grid parking at the start of the race (something Audi is trying to use to have the point taken away from him).
Damage in Madrid ruined any chance of doing the same there but he more than proved he's an ideal stand-in driver. Quick to adapt and capable of delivering points. But not stunning enough to go 'this guy shouldn't be left on the sidelines'.
In Tsunoda's words: "I gave it my all and there's nothing to regret."
If this is the end of Tsunoda's 114-race F1 career, then it's a far more fitting end than toiling miles off Verstappen. - Josh Suttill
Lindblad's passed another test
As the sole rookie in the field this year, Lindblad had already made an impressive start to life in grand prix racing.
But this three-race spell ticked at least one other box.
The Lawson-Lindblad partnership has been a particularly well-matched one; their effectiveness is a big part of the reason Racing Bulls still heads Alpine in the constructors' championship.
But while Tsunoda adjusted perfectly well to the demands of these 2026 cars, Racing Bulls was always going to need its other driver in this dynamic to lead the line. Lindblad did just that.
His pace was sufficient at Monza to finish ahead of an Alpine that he had little right beating (notwithstanding Franco Colapinto's self-inflicted drama); the Madring weekend was imperfect but he still brought home two points; and even at Zandvoort, where a harsh in-race penalty dropped him out of contention, he was an effective disruptor in stopping Pierre Gasly from scoring more points and giving Tsunoda the best chance of getting off the mark.
That's now seven Q3 appearances in a row, too, and Racing Bulls has preserved a margin over Alpine in the constructors' championship.
More impressive stuff from a driver who's still only 19, whose performances won't have escaped the attention of Red Bull higher-ups. The question now is whether the balance of power at Racing Bulls might have shifted in his favour. - Jack Cozens
A fit Hadjar helps Verstappen
Verstappen cares who his team-mate is and how they are performing. It directly, and indirectly, impacts him.
A seamless Hadjar return would be a boost for Verstappen as Red Bull continues to try to fight consistently at the front. Getting the second car in the mix is crucial when Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren can all typically count on both their drivers.
Lawson didn't finish within a minute of the race winner on any of his Red Bull starts. Regardless of the mitigating factors, that inevitably meant Verstappen and Red Bull were fighting one-handed (although Verstappen was the one who exited spectacularly at Zandvoort, of course).
If Hadjar can be immediately at his best, he will be a factor in race outcomes at the front and in Red Bull's bid to try to improve on its fourth place in the constructors' championship.
As he's missed three races and spent two months away, an instantly strong return could also be seen as further vindication for Verstappen's theory that F1 2026's not as strenuous as it should be.
But that's unlikely to be something Verstappen complains about if it benefits him and his team. - SMM
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