Red Bull reveal deadline for Max Verstappen team-mate decision

Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko has provided the timeframe by which Red Bull will finalise who Max Verstappen's team-mate will be in 2026.

The Dutchman committed himself to the Milton Keynes squad earlier in the summer after considerable speculation that he would seek pastures new.

Despite being contracted to the six-time constructors' champions until 2028, the four-time F1 drivers' champion engaged in talks with Toto Wolff over a potential switch to Mercedes.

But whilst Verstappen's immediate future has been sewn up, Red Bull still has the difficult task of choosing his team-mate for next term.

Its second seat has plagued the team for some time now, and despite a brief reprieve from those issues when Sergio Perez joined in 2021, the Mexican driver eventually fell victim to the same fate as Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon before him.

After scoring a meagre 49 points over the final 18 rounds of the 2024 campaign, Perez was replaced by Liam Lawson for the current season.

However, the New Zealander struggled considerably with the transition to the idiosyncrasies of Red Bull's cars and was demoted back to Racing Bulls after two painful and pointless rounds.

The previously overlooked Yuki Tsunoda was drafted in, but the 25-year-old has fared little better, and undeniably worse than Perez, who will return to F1 with Cadillac next year.

Having scored just nine points in 13 rounds, the Japanese driver is under significant pressure to turn his underwhelming form around, or face the prospect of, like Perez, a season spent on the sidelines.

Laurent Mekies' promotion to Red Bull team principal, in place of Christian Horner, marks the start of a new era, one that may prove less ruthless and less inclined towards quick driver changes.

It may also afford Lawson a second shot at being team-mate to Verstappen, if Tsunoda is ultimately let go at the end of the year.

Heading into a new generation of F1 cars, and with Red Bull potentially motivated to achieve greater parity between the Dutchman and whoever partners him, could also work in his favour.

The third option is Lawson's current team-mate, Isack Hadjar. The young Frenchman has taken F1 by storm this season, and his maiden podium in the Dutch Grand Prix has set tails wagging even more ferociously about his promise and potential than they already were following a strong first half season.

The 15 points the 20-year-old secured for his trip to the Zandvoort rostrum are six more than Tsunoda has managed since his first race for Red Bull.

The team might, in a departure from its norm, opt to give Hadjar more time at Racing Bulls to develop. Either way, Marko has explained that the team will make its final call before the end of next month.

"We'll see," the 82-year-old told Austrian publication OE24 when asked if Hadjar will be ready the step up as early as 2026. "We have until October to make that decision."

Expanding on his point, Marko pointed to Kimi Antonelli's recent struggles at Mercedes as justification for why the F2 runner-up has not already been elevated to Red Bull.

"Because he should have a certain amount of experience," he explained. "The pressure is much greater in a top team, as we can see at Mercedes."

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