Red Bull keep unchanged line-up at Monza: Hadjar’s injury opens a longer audition for Liam Lawson

Red Bull has confirmed that Liam Lawson will continue alongside Max Verstappen at Monza, with Isack Hadjar still recovering from injury. The official line-up news is short, but behind it lies a much bigger story about driver valuation, internal competition, and the strategic depth of Red Bull’s two-team system. At Zandvoort, Lawson finished seventh from eighth on the grid, while Yuki Tsunoda was recalled to the Racing Bulls car and finished 11th, narrowly missing points. Ayumu Iwasa will replace Verstappen in FP1 at Monza, fulfilling one of the mandated rookie sessions. Hadjar was not risked before he was fully fit, so the same driver combination will race again in Italy. This is not merely a precautionary decision. Lawson is receiving a second consecutive audition in the RB22, and Monza is a completely different technical challenge from Zandvoort. If he performs well on a low-downforce track, his claim to a 2027 seat will become much harder to ignore. Every race Hadjar misses is another data point accumulating in Lawson’s favour, and the internal hierarchy of Red Bull’s driver pool could be quietly shifting.