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Isack Hadjar will be back in the Red Bull cockpit at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday, ending a three-race absence that cost the 21-year-old 74 points of ground on Max Verstappen and turned a promising first season with the senior team into a salvage job.
Hadjar injured his wrist in fitness training during Formula 1’s August shutdown and was ruled out of the Dutch, Italian and Spanish Grands Prix. Red Bull confirmed he will rejoin the team at the Baku City Circuit on Thursday, ahead of a race weekend compressed by an unusual schedule change.
“Oracle Red Bull Racing is delighted to welcome Isack back this weekend,” the team said. “Having made a successful recovery from his wrist injury, Isack will return to action at the Baku City Circuit on Thursday.”
Three races lost, and a gap that grew
Liam Lawson was promoted from Racing Bulls to deputise across all three rounds, with reserve driver Yuki Tsunoda slotting into Lawson’s seat at the junior team. Lawson scored 14 points in his three outings alongside Verstappen, taking his season total to 59 and lifting Red Bull to 230 points in the constructors’ championship — fourth, 76 behind McLaren.
For Hadjar, the arithmetic is less kind. He sits eighth in the drivers’ standings on 71 points. Before the injury he was 23 points adrift of Oscar Piastri; three races watching from the outside have stretched that to 49. Verstappen, sixth on 145, has effectively doubled his team-mate’s tally.
Lawson now returns to Racing Bulls, where Arvid Lindblad has held the other seat all season and sits 11th on 31 points. Tsunoda, who scored once as a stand-in, stays on the sidelines as Red Bull’s contingency option for the remainder of the year. Red Bull publicly credited Lawson with “some impressive performances” and “a valuable contribution” — a pointed reminder, in a team that has never been sentimental about seats, that the bench is deep.
A season of extremes before the injury
Hadjar arrived at Red Bull in 2026 after a rookie campaign at Racing Bulls that produced a podium at Zandvoort and 12th in the championship — enough for the team to choose him over Tsunoda as Verstappen’s team-mate, with Lindblad dropping into the junior squad.
The move has been anything but linear. His standout result, third at the Monaco Grand Prix, took four months to become official. Pierre Gasly crossed the line third but was demoted to seventh by two five-second pit-lane speeding penalties, promoting Hadjar. Alpine then won a stewards’ review on the basis that the pit-lane monitoring equipment had been incorrectly configured, and the penalties were rescinded. McLaren and Red Bull appealed, arguing Gasly had been judged by different parameters to drivers penalised for the same offence in the same race. On 4 September — while Hadjar was already sidelined — the FIA’s International Court of Appeal reimposed the penalties and handed the podium back.
That ruling means Hadjar’s best result of the year was confirmed in a Paris courtroom rather than on a rostrum, and it arrived at the low point of his season. Two of his three career podiums are now on the record, and 71 of the points he has scored this year came before the summer break.
Why Baku is the right place to restart
Azerbaijan is round 15 of the championship and the opening leg of a triple-header that runs on to Malaysia and Singapore. The race has been moved forward a day to Saturday 26 September at the request of organisers and government officials, to avoid a clash with Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day — the first Saturday grand prix in the event’s history, and the 10th time Baku has hosted Formula 1.
The circuit is an awkward one to return to after six weeks out. Baku’s 2.2km run to Turn 1 rewards low drag, but the medieval castle section demands precision at walking-pace speeds between concrete walls, and the compressed Saturday schedule removes a day of acclimatisation. Wrists take a beating over a lap with 20 corners and heavy braking into Turn 1 and Turn 3.
The wider context is that Mercedes have run away with both titles in the first year of the new regulations — Kimi Antonelli leads on 292 points from George Russell on 211, with Mercedes on 503 in the constructors’. Red Bull’s 2026 is already about 2027. Hadjar, who turns 22 two days after the race, has nine rounds to show that the promotion was the right call. Baku is where that case resumes.
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Sources: [Sky Sports](https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/13590366/isack-hadjar-red-bull-driver-to-return-to-action-at-azerbaijan-gp-after-missing-three-races-with-wrist-injury), [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/50003845/isack-hadjar-returns-red-bull-azerbaijan-gp-injury-layoff), [Wikipedia — 2026 Azerbaijan GP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Azerbaijan_Grand_Prix), [RacingNews365 standings](https://racingnews365.com/f1/standings/2026/drivers), [RACER — Monaco appeal](https://racer.com/2026/09/04/hadjar-s-monaco-podium-reinstated-on-appeal-as-gasly-loses-out)
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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