Hadjar Out, Lawson In: Dutch Grand Prix 2026 Media Day

The Dutch Grand Prix 2026 media day was supposed to belong to Max Verstappen’s new contract. Instead the room spent most of its time on a phone call that landed on Tuesday. Isack Hadjar’s wrist injury, picked up during summer training, has ruled him out of Zandvoort’s last Dutch Grand Prix before it drops off the calendar, and Liam Lawson is back in the Red Bull seat to cover for him on a Sprint weekend that gives him almost no time to prepare. Arvid Lindblad gets a new teammate for the weekend too, with Yuki Tsunoda stepping into the second Racing Bulls car. Sergio Perez faced questions on Cadillac’s leadership change from Graeme Lowdon to Marcin Budkowski. Lando Norris arrived off the back of a Hungary win still working out what his new floor proved, Hulkenberg had his first points of the season to talk through, and George Russell picked through what went wrong at Silverstone and Spa before taking questions on the 59 points separating him from his own teammate.

Key Points – Dutch Grand Prix 2026 Media Day

• Isack Hadjar ruled out of the Dutch Grand Prix 2026 with a wrist injury sustained during summer break training, confirmed by Red Bull and Racing Bulls team statements
• Liam Lawson returns to Oracle Red Bull Racing for the weekend, with Yuki Tsunoda stepping into Racing Bulls alongside Arvid Lindblad
• Lindblad reveals he learned of the change on Tuesday and wasn’t consulted on taking the Red Bull seat himself, calling it “a bit more of a risk” given his rookie season
• Perez responds to Cadillac’s leadership change from Graeme Lowdon to Marcin Budkowski and confirms his own ambition to stay with the team long term beyond his two-year deal
• Norris arrives off a Hungary win still assessing whether McLaren’s new floor upgrade is track-specific or a genuine step forward everywhere
• Russell confirms the software issue behind Mercedes’s Silverstone and Spa slump was fixed in Hungary, with 59 points now separating him from teammate Kimi Antonelli

Max Verstappen

Verstappen’s new deal through to 2030 had already landed by the time he sat down in the press room, so the questions moved quickly to the driver alongside him. Lawson’s return came together fast. Verstappen said he only got the news on Tuesday himself, same as everyone else, and that a Sprint weekend is about the worst possible landing spot for a driver walking back into the car cold. He’d seen Lawson in the simulator briefly and hoped that was enough to get him something close to prepared.

This is the last Dutch Grand Prix before it drops off the calendar, and Verstappen kept coming back to the fans. Close to the track in places. Loud. A layout he called properly old-school. He said he wanted to keep a positive mood through the weekend regardless of the circumstances around his own seat, and that having the contract news land here, in front of the crowd that’s followed him since 2016, added something extra to it.

Arvid Lindblad

Lindblad found out about the reshuffle the same way everyone else did, on Tuesday, and there was no discussion beforehand about him taking the Red Bull seat instead of Lawson. He didn’t pretend he wouldn’t have wanted the opportunity. But he laid out exactly why the team’s call made sense. First visit to Zandvoort. Barely halfway through a rookie season. A Sprint weekend leaves almost no practice to bank the learning on an unfamiliar car. Lawson, with his prior Red Bull experience, was always the lower-risk option.

His new teammate for the weekend is Yuki Tsunoda, stepping in as Lawson moves up. Lindblad said he doesn’t know Tsunoda especially well, the two haven’t crossed paths much before now, but described the relationship as friendly and said he’d help him get up to speed on an unfamiliar car wherever he could. On his own weekend, he arrives recharged off the break and expecting more of the same form he carried into it. He said the car has held up well on every type of track this year, not just the ones that suit it.

Sergio Perez

Cadillac’s news of the week wasn’t a driver swap. Graeme Lowdon has been replaced by Marcin Budkowski as team principal, and Perez was straightforward in crediting Lowdon’s part in building the team to where it now stands alongside General Motors and Dan Towriss. He framed the change as part of a first-year team still finding its shape, and said a new leader brings a new perspective he’s looking forward to, even without much time spent with Budkowski so far.

Pushed on which department he’d want Budkowski to prioritise, Perez said there isn’t a single fix. Strategy, race preparation, post-race review, the full list of procedures a new team has to build from nothing. He said the whole group is looking to the new leadership to guide all of it forward together, rather than isolating one weak point.

Lando Norris

Norris arrives at Zandvoort off the back of a Hungary win, and he was careful not to get ahead of himself about repeating it. The new floor introduced in Budapest was clearly a step, he said, but he and the team still don’t know if the gain was universal or specific to that circuit’s surface and corner types. Sunday’s pace in Hungary, by his own account, may have been a bigger performance than McLaren produced at any point last season, which is exactly why he wants to see it confirmed somewhere different before calling it proven.

The championship math puts Norris less than 100 points behind Antonelli, a gap the press room framed as tighter than Verstappen’s deficit to Piastri at this stage last year. He said he only thinks about the number when a journalist puts it in front of him, and that not thinking about it worked fine for him in Hungary. Zandvoort dropping off the calendar clearly stings more. He didn’t hide his disappointment, saying he prefers smaller races with passionate crowds over some of what’s replacing them, with Madrid new to the 2026 calendar and Malaysia returning in place of Bahrain.

Nico Hulkenberg

Hulkenberg scored his first points of the season last time out in Hungary, and he was cautiously confident it marks the start of a run rather than an isolated result. He described Audi’s package as good enough now to fight the midfield, with Racing Bulls and Alpine the rivals he expects to be scrapping with most often through the rest of the year.

Hulkenberg’s role beyond driving came up too, and he said both he and teammate Gabriel Bortoleto are relied on to give direction and feedback that shapes where the team focuses. Zandvoort’s disappearance from the calendar hits him personally. He raced here during his junior career and described the atmosphere as club-like, closer to a festival than a Grand Prix weekend, and said he’ll miss it.

George Russell

Russell took the congratulations on his engagement to Carmen in stride before moving into the racing questions, and he was direct about what had gone wrong across Silverstone and Spa. A software issue was behind it, fixed by Hungary, though a separate race start problem cost him another shot at the podium once the underlying fault was resolved. The conversation then moved to the championship and the 59-point gap to Antonelli.

That’s Russell’s answer on the 59-point gap to Antonelli. He isn’t dwelling on it. It closes if the performance comes back. He said Mercedes are behind the development curve after rivals brought upgrades first, and that how the team’s own update lands will shape the rest of his year. Russell added his voice to those mourning Zandvoort’s departure too, calling it a track with real character that plenty of people will miss.

Coffee Corner Take

The Verstappen headline was always going to write itself. It’s the swap sitting underneath it that says more about how Red Bull actually operate. Lawson walking back into the RB22 with limited simulator preparation isn’t a soft landing, and it tests a driver pipeline more honestly than a press release ever will. Verstappen’s own answer on it was careful, almost protective, wanting Lawson set up to succeed rather than thrown in cold. Lindblad, a rung below him on the same ladder, handled being passed over with more self-awareness than most twenty-year-olds manage in front of a press room. He explained the decision himself, unprompted, rather than making the moment about what he’d missed out on.

Cadillac’s leadership change carried more weight in Perez’s answer than the question probably expected. A first-year team already swapping its principal isn’t nothing, and he chose to frame it as continuity rather than upheaval, using the same moment to make his own long-term intentions clear beyond the two-year deal that brought him to the team in the first place.

Norris won’t look at the points gap to Antonelli, and Russell won’t either, and it’s the right call for both of them, for different reasons. Norris is closing on a rival he can actually catch. Russell is stuck behind a teammate who’s simply delivered the stronger results more often, and no amount of staring at 59 points changes that until Mercedes bring something quicker. A number you can’t influence is just noise.

Zandvoort’s own farewell ran underneath every one of these conversations without anyone needing to force it. Norris talked about smaller, passionate crowds. Hulkenberg talked about a track that still feels like a club night. Nobody had to be asked twice to say they’d miss it. Whoever’s driving which car this weekend, it’s the last time, for now, that any of them get to do it here.