In the high-stakes, high-speed world of Formula 1, one seat is consistently the most desired and most feared on the grid. It’s not just a seat; it’s a gauntlet. It’s the second cockpit at Red Bull Racing, the team that fields the generational talent of Max Verstappen. For years, this position has become a grim, recurring episode of “Whose career will Max destroy next?” Now, as the 2026 season and its revolutionary new regulations loom, Red Bull is once again trapped in a familiar, self-made dilemma, caught between two drivers and a history of broken dreams.

The dilemma has a name: Isack Hadjar. The young driver, racing for the junior “RB” team, has been the undeniable surprise of the season. In a car that is theoretically, and often practically, inferior, Hadjar has done the unthinkable. He hasn’t just impressed; he has excelled, scoring a podium and consistently outperforming the metrics of his machine. On paper, he has outperformed his stablemate, Yuki Tsunoda, the man whose seat he is so clearly destined to take.

For much of the year, Hadjar’s promotion seemed an inevitability. It was the classic Red Bull story: a new prodigy rises through the ranks, proves his mettle in the junior team, and gets the golden ticket. The decision was expected, the narrative all but written. But then, as it so often does in F1, the script began to blur.

Just as Hadjar’s star was burning its brightest, Yuki Tsunoda, a driver many had written off, began to find his footing. After struggling for much of the year to even crack the top 10, Tsunoda’s results have recently, and dramatically, improved. A sixth-place finish in Baku, a double-points finish in Austin, and then, in Mexico, a weekend where his pace was, for the first time, tantalizingly close to Verstappen’s. Of course, this being Tsunoda’s luck, his stellar race was completely annihilated by a horrifically slow 12-second pit stop, dropping him out of a fight for points and back into frustration.

And therein lies the problem. The Yuki skeptics, and they are many, will rightly point out that even at his absolute best, he is fighting for P6. They’ll point to other young guns, like Liam Lawson and Oliver Bearman, who have also scored top-five finishes or fought for podiums. For the second seat in a championship-contending car, “not good enough” is the brutal, reigning verdict.

Under normal circumstances, this would be an open-and-shut case. Hadjar, the phenomenal rookie, gets the promotion. Tsunoda, the inconsistent veteran of the junior program, is thanked for his services. But Red Bull is not a normal circumstance. It is a paradox, an environment where logic goes to die. The central, terrifying truth that Red Bull must confront is this: there is absolutely no evidence that being outstanding in the RB car means you will be even adequate in the Red Bull.

This is the Red Bull “curse,” a legacy written in the tarnished careers of drivers who were, like Hadjar, once hailed as the next big thing. Ask Alex Albon. Ask Pierre Gasly. Both were sensational in the junior team (then known as Toro Rosso). Both were promoted with enormous fanfare. And both were unceremoniously chewed up and spat out by the Red Bull machine, their confidence shattered, their reputations in tatters. They were forced to spend years in the midfield, painstakingly rebuilding what the team had destroyed in mere months.

The risk for Hadjar is not that he isn’t talented. He clearly is. The risk is that he isn’t ready. He may have more raw potential than Yuki, but is he ready for the “mental environment” of being Max Verstappen’s teammate? Is he ready for a team where every data point, every development path, and every strategic decision is, quite rightly, built around a singular, title-winning genius? When the car inevitably evolves to suit Max’s unique driving style, will Hadjar, like Sergio Perez before him, find his form immediately and inexplicably decline?

Promoting Hadjar now, as he rides this high wave of confidence, feels like a gamble that could backfire spectacularly. The same fans and media praising him as a revelation this season will be the first to slate him as “incompetent” and “slow” when he’s struggling to match a teammate that no one can match.

This entire situation is compounded by a new, powerful wildcard: the 2026 regulations. A complete reset of the car’s design, a new generation of car, creates a “massive opportunity.” It’s a narrow window at the very beginning of a new era, a time when the team and even Max himself are still figuring out the machinery. This is when a teammate can be closest. We saw it in 2022 with Sergio Perez, who started the new regulation cycle on fire, even winning in Monaco, right up until the moment Red Bull “outdeveloped” the competition and gave Max a car that only he could truly dominate. That small window is what Hadjar and Yuki are fighting for. It’s the chance to grasp an opportunity before the car is perfected and the door slams shut.

Perhaps the new management at Red Bull, led by Laurent Mekies, understands this. There appears to be a new philosophy, a shift away from the reactionary, “constant change” approach favored by Helmut Marko and Christian Horner, which has so often destroyed drivers. Mekies, having worked with Yuki, seems more inclined to give his drivers time, to let them develop, to listen to their feedback. It’s a patient approach that has not been working, because the Red Bull driver pipeline, a victim of its own success, demands blood.

There is always a swarm of younger drivers waiting in the wings. Arvid Lindblad, the next “hotly tipped” prospect, already impressed in his first practice outing. This creates a “three into two” situation, putting pressure on Red Bull’s ethos to keep its production line moving, to find the next Max Verstappen for when the current one decides to leave.

In many ways, Red Bull is still paying the price for a decision it didn’t make: not signing Carlos Sainz. When Sainz was available, Red Bull passed, and in doing so, they missed out on a proven, race-winning, “championship caliber” driver. Instead, they continue to try and fit decent, promising midfield drivers into a role that demands a world-beater, and then act surprised when they break.

So, what is the right move? The heart, and perhaps the data, says continuity. Give Yuki Tsunoda a proper preseason for 2026, let him benefit from the new, more patient management, and allow Isack Hadjar another year at RB to mature, develop, and build his mental fortitude for the battle that awaits.

But Red Bull is rarely guided by patience. The head, and the historical pressure, points to an inevitable, and worrying, conclusion. There is no denying that Isack Hadjar “deserves” his chance. And so, it is most likely that Red Bull will do what it has always done. It will promote the hot new talent. It will roll the dice.

This decision both excites and worries in equal measure. We may be about to witness the birth of a new superstar, a driver who can finally thrive in the shadow of a giant. Or, we may be about to watch, in slow, agonizing detail, as Red Bull takes its brightest new star and risks extinguishing him for good.