The Official F1 2026 silly season *contains speculation*

[BunkMoreland]

Arvid is a good kid!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tBN_jhGM_Gk



Certain media are making out hes "the 5th Brit on the grid" But I believe he'll be doing the Albon trick and racing under the Swedish flag

[Supersam83]

The Red Bull Junior team love churning through drivers don't they.

From 2005-2025 they have given F1 drives to:

Christian Klien
Sebastian Vettel
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Scott Speed
Sebastian Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari
Brandon Hartley
Jean Eric Vergne
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kyvat
Carlos Sainz Jr
Alex Albon
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Nick De Vries
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Arvid Lindblad

[MiniMan64]

Supersam83 said:

The Red Bull Junior team love churning through drivers don't they.

From 2005-2025 they have given F1 drives to:

Christian Klien
Sebastian Vettel
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Scott Speed
Sebastian Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari
Brandon Hartley
Jean Eric Vergne
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kyvat
Carlos Sainz Jr
Alex Albon
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Nick De Vries
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Arvid Lindblad

To be fair though, they’ve managed to get four F1 World Titles out of that lot!

Not a bad return

[cuprabob]

MiniMan64 said:

Supersam83 said:

The Red Bull Junior team love churning through drivers don't they.

From 2005-2025 they have given F1 drives to:

Christian Klien
Sebastian Vettel
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Scott Speed
Sebastian Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari
Brandon Hartley
Jean Eric Vergne
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kyvat
Carlos Sainz Jr
Alex Albon
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Nick De Vries
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Arvid Lindblad

To be fair though, they ve managed to get four F1 World Titles out of that lot!

Not a bad return

Eight F1 World titles surely?

[MiniMan64]

cuprabob said:

MiniMan64 said:

Supersam83 said:

The Red Bull Junior team love churning through drivers don't they.

From 2005-2025 they have given F1 drives to:

Christian Klien
Sebastian Vettel
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Scott Speed
Sebastian Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari
Brandon Hartley
Jean Eric Vergne
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kyvat
Carlos Sainz Jr
Alex Albon
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Nick De Vries
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Arvid Lindblad

To be fair though, they ve managed to get four F1 World Titles out of that lot!

Not a bad return

Eight F1 World titles surely?

bks, fked that joke up good and proper didn’t it?

Shame.

[vaud]

MiniMan64 said:

bks, fked that joke up good and proper didn t it?

Shame.

Blame puberty. I am still at 50+

[hondajack85]

So project save Lawsons arse worked then. If Yuki had stayed at torro rosso he would have had a lot of solid results and would have been hard to sack.
The old switcheroo for once significant and not a crofty in sight.
I fully expect the massed ranks of Red Bull drivers to make the title fight 'difficult' next sunday.

[ajprice]

MiniMan64 said:

cuprabob said:

MiniMan64 said:

Supersam83 said:

The Red Bull Junior team love churning through drivers don't they.

From 2005-2025 they have given F1 drives to:

Christian Klien
Sebastian Vettel
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Scott Speed
Sebastian Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari
Brandon Hartley
Jean Eric Vergne
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kyvat
Carlos Sainz Jr
Alex Albon
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Nick De Vries
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Arvid Lindblad

To be fair though, they ve managed to get four F1 World Titles out of that lot!

Not a bad return

Eight F1 World titles surely?

bks, fked that joke up good and proper didn t it?

Shame.

The 8 titles for Red Bull and the junior team's 18 drivers (not counting Lindblad as he's for 2026) might be 9 titles on Sunday.

Red Bull 14 drivers 2005-2025. 8/9 WDC

David Coulthard
Christian Klien
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Robert Doornbos
Mark Webber
Sebastian Vettel
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kvyat
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Alexander Albon
Sergio Perez
Liam Lawson
Yuki Tsunoda

Ferrari's 12 drivers in the same 2005-2025 period. 1 WDC (from 2 cars, not 4)

Michael Schumacher
Rubens Barrichello
Felipe Massa
Kimi Raikkonen
Luca Badoer
Giancarlo Fisichella
Fernando Alonso
Sebastian Vettel
Charles Leclerc
Carlos Sainz Jnr
Oliver Bearman
Lewis Hamilton

McLaren 16 drivers in the same period. 1 WDC (possibly 2 on Sunday, and from 2 cars, not 4).

Kimi Raikkonen
Juan Pablo Montoya
Pedro de la Rosa
Alexander Wurz
Fernando Alonso
Lewis Hamilton
Heikki Kovalainen
Jenson Button
Sergio Perez
Kevin Magnussen
Fernando Alonso
Stoffel Vandoorne
Carlos Sainz Jnr
Lando Norris
Daniel Ricciardo
Oscar Piastri

It works for Red Bull though, 8/9 from 14 vs 1 from 12 and 1/2 from 16.

Meanwhile at Mercedes, 2010-2025. 7 WDC, 6 drivers.

Michael Schumacher
Nico Rosberg
Lewis Hamilton
Valtteri Bottas
George Russell
Andrea Kimi Antonelli

[SpudLink]

Supersam83 said:

The Red Bull Junior team love churning through drivers don't they.

From 2005-2025 they have given F1 drives to:

Christian Klien
Sebastian Vettel
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Scott Speed
Sebastian Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari
Brandon Hartley
Jean Eric Vergne
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kyvat
Carlos Sainz Jr
Alex Albon
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Nick De Vries
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Arvid Lindblad

Shouldn’t Sebastien Bourdais be in the list?

[Supersam83]

SpudLink said:

Supersam83 said:

The Red Bull Junior team love churning through drivers don't they.

From 2005-2025 they have given F1 drives to:

Christian Klien
Sebastian Vettel
Vitantonio Liuzzi
Scott Speed
Sebastian Buemi
Jaime Alguersuari
Brandon Hartley
Jean Eric Vergne
Daniel Ricciardo
Daniil Kyvat
Carlos Sainz Jr
Alex Albon
Max Verstappen
Pierre Gasly
Nick De Vries
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Arvid Lindblad

Shouldn t Sebastien Bourdais be in the list?

He wasn't part of the Red Bull junior team and was bought in from Champ car/Indycar where he already won 4 championships.

[parabolica]

hondajack85 said:

So project save Lawsons arse worked then. If Yuki had stayed at torro rosso he would have had a lot of solid results and would have been hard to sack.
The old switcheroo for once significant and not a crofty in sight.
I fully expect the massed ranks of Red Bull drivers to make the title fight 'difficult' next sunday.

This was always going to be Yuki's last year under RB unless he put in a stellar performance and showed up Max, which was never going to be the case. Sad to not see him on the 2026 grid but being out from under RB management is only a good thing for him IMO; hopefully another team takes a punt on him at some point, maybe if Alonso retires and AM/Honda want him.

[Supersam83]

parabolica said:

hondajack85 said:

So project save Lawsons arse worked then. If Yuki had stayed at torro rosso he would have had a lot of solid results and would have been hard to sack.
The old switcheroo for once significant and not a crofty in sight.
I fully expect the massed ranks of Red Bull drivers to make the title fight 'difficult' next sunday.

This was always going to be Yuki's last year under RB unless he put in a stellar performance and showed up Max, which was never going to be the case. Sad to not see him on the 2026 grid but being out from under RB management is only a good thing for him IMO; hopefully another team takes a punt on him at some point, maybe if Alonso retires and AM/Honda want him.

He is still Red Bull/Racing Bulls test/reserve driver for 2026 so if Lawson/Lindblad don't perform, he will end up back in the car.

[TheDeuce]

Supersam83 said:

parabolica said:

hondajack85 said:

So project save Lawsons arse worked then. If Yuki had stayed at torro rosso he would have had a lot of solid results and would have been hard to sack.
The old switcheroo for once significant and not a crofty in sight.
I fully expect the massed ranks of Red Bull drivers to make the title fight 'difficult' next sunday.

This was always going to be Yuki's last year under RB unless he put in a stellar performance and showed up Max, which was never going to be the case. Sad to not see him on the 2026 grid but being out from under RB management is only a good thing for him IMO; hopefully another team takes a punt on him at some point, maybe if Alonso retires and AM/Honda want him.

He is still Red Bull/Racing Bulls test/reserve driver for 2026 so if Lawson/Lindblad don't perform, he will end up back in the car.

I would say that a reserve driver getting to drive the car in a competitive session under any circumstances these days is about a 10% probability. Most of the time if a main driver is out of action they ignore the reserve driver and use it as a test session for someone new from the junior programs. Even if they sack off an existing driver it's not particularly likely it'll be the reserve that gets the gig, especially not one already judged to have not performed well enough.

Yuki would only get that opportunity if they don't have anyone else lined up that they would prefer to try out, or move a driver up from Racing Bulls and put a new driver in there.

It's a shame but... do you really think there's much of a chance he'll drive an RBR/RB again? I don't.

[ajprice]

Yuki must have an eye on the Aston Martin Honda for 27/whenever Alonso retires/whenever Stroll Sr gives up on Jr/Max going there because it's better than the 26 Red Bull.

[thegreenhell]

Red Bull use their reserve driver differently to most teams. He's there as a reminder to the main race drivers not to fk up or they'll be replaced.

[TheDeuce]

ajprice said:

Yuki must have an eye on the Aston Martin Honda for 27/whenever Alonso retires/whenever Stroll Sr gives up on Jr/Max going there because it's better than the 26 Red Bull.

As you point out, if it's a better car than the RBR and Lance or Fred leave, then Max (or other drivers plainly better than Yuki) would get the drive.

I assume also that Honda are done with Yuki now, they haven't put him into another series and he's now going to be doing development driver work including PU testing for another engine manufacture, involving Honda competitor Ford. I can't see how he could take such a role if he was hopeful Honda would get him placed in another F1 team/series.

[TheDeuce]

thegreenhell said:

Red Bull use their reserve driver differently to most teams. He's there as a reminder to the main race drivers not to fk up or they'll be replaced.

There might be some truth in that!

Although when was the last time they had a reserve driver they had already sacked, that was used as a replacement for more recently sacked driver? They've already fully tested Yuki, so not sure he's personally much of a threat to new drivers. That's not to say they won't find other ways of continuing to make new drivers feel insecure.

[parabolica]

Supersam83 said:

parabolica said:

hondajack85 said:

So project save Lawsons arse worked then. If Yuki had stayed at torro rosso he would have had a lot of solid results and would have been hard to sack.
The old switcheroo for once significant and not a crofty in sight.
I fully expect the massed ranks of Red Bull drivers to make the title fight 'difficult' next sunday.

This was always going to be Yuki's last year under RB unless he put in a stellar performance and showed up Max, which was never going to be the case. Sad to not see him on the 2026 grid but being out from under RB management is only a good thing for him IMO; hopefully another team takes a punt on him at some point, maybe if Alonso retires and AM/Honda want him.

He is still Red Bull/Racing Bulls test/reserve driver for 2026 so if Lawson/Lindblad don't perform, he will end up back in the car.

Ah I misread The Race's article; I thought they said he lost his seat + change to be reserve driver; they actually say he's settled for it. Hopefully he's free to look elsewhere though.

[hondajack85]

Yuki was always going to struggle at red bull just like Lawson,who for some reason was allowed back to safety at sleepy rosso toro.
I imagine the problem is the army of red bull techies bombarding you with all the mumbo jumbo that justifies their jobs.
A lot of it of no consequence, but being inexperienced you assume you have to absorb it all or something will go wrong.
Interesting that Norris really got his act together when he started ignoring a lot of the claptrap.

[Supersam83]

Driver salaries for the F1 2026 season (via Sport Bible F1):

Max Verstappen $65m

Lewis Hamilton $60m

Charles Leclerc $34m

Lando Norris $20m

Oscar Piastri $20m

Fernando Alonso $20m

George Russell $18m

Carlos Sainz Jr $10m

Pierre Gasly $10m

Alex Albon $8m

Lance Stroll $6m

Esteban Ocon $5m

Niko Hulkenberg $5m

Isack Hadjar $3m

Kimi Antonelli $3m

Liam Lawson $3m

Valtteri Bottas $3m

Sergio Perez $3m

Gabriel Bortoleto $2m

Franco Colapinto $2m

Ollie Bearman $1m

Arvid Lindblad $1m


Any surprises or what we thought it would be?