Who should replace Max Verstappen at Red Bull if he gets banned?

Max Verstappen will spend the next two rounds of the F1 season in a precarious position.

After he crashed into George Russell during the Spanish Grand Prix, an incident that earned him three penalty points on his FIA super licence, the Red Bull driver must navigate the weekends in Canada and Austria on the brink of a one-race ban.

The collision at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya took the Dutchman to 11 of 12 allowed penalty points in a 12-month window, leaving him at serious risk of suspension.

Following the round at the Red Bull Ring, the four-time F1 drivers' champion will go back down to nine penalty points.

However, that is but a partial reprieve. Not until October do more sanctions come off his super licence due to the spate of incidents with Lando Norris he was punished for at the back-end of last year.

Therefore, Red Bull has a very real problem on its hands. If Verstappen cannot keep his nose clean, as Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have implored him to do, the Milton Keynes squad must turn to a replacement driver to partner Yuki Tsunoda for an F1 round.

Some of the options available to the six-time constructors' champions are more obvious, like the Racing Bulls line-up of Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson, or reserve driver Ayumu Iwasa, but there remain some left-field alternatives.

Whether Arvid Lindblad will be granted special dispensation to have an FIA super licence at the age of 17 will be decided by the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) next week, so he could feature in the mix if Verstappen is banned.

However, the F2 driver would likely take one of the Racing Bulls seats for the weekend, something Iwasa may also do if chosen.

If Red Bull feels an experienced hand is more appropriate, it could turn to Sergio Perez or Daniel Ricciardo. Although unlikely, if the team's second-seat difficulties have shown anything, it is that its former drivers may be the team's best chance at a points finish in place of Verstappen.

Lastly, as harsh as it might appear to drivers already on Red Bull's books, it could turn to someone outside its current stable, like Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu.

The former recently spoke about the prospect of joining the team for 2026, but with both drivers tied into reserve deals for Mercedes and Ferrari, respectively, they are unlikely to be released for a weekend.

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