'Will Liam Lawson get a new contract at Red Bull?' is a perfectly good question to want an answer to. Unfortunately, we can't give you one.

We, and other F1 writers, can tell you whether he might get another year at Racing Bulls (yes, he might), and we can tell you whether they might instead opt to continue Nikola Tsolov's development at the Kiwi's expense (also yes, they might do that).

Beyond that, there isn't much we can tell you one way or another. They might be less aggressive churning through young drivers in the post-Helmut Marko era - in fact, they probably will - but does that mean another year for Lawson particularly?

The only people who could answer that question are strongly disinclined to do so, and so all we can really do is wait.

Well, that's not quite true. We're without a single crystal ball at GPFans Towers (the cat knocked them all off the shelf and they smashed), but we can do opinions. We've got opinions for days. 'Will Liam Lawson get a new contract at Red Bull?' is no longer the question. Now for...

Should Liam Lawson get a new contract at Red Bull?

That's more like it.

If this was a normal racing team, this would be a pretty simple answer too. Yes, the team's best driver in 2026 - who's one point short of doubling his team-mate's tally of 38 points on the season - should be driving for the team in 2027. That's a no-brainer.

On the other hand, that's not how Red Bull operate, and that's not really what the Racing Bulls team is for. The organisation has made a concerted effort to move away from the 'junior team/senior team' dynamic, but as long as one team can borrow the other's number one driver when one of its own gets injured, that's exactly what they are.

The end goal of any Racing Bulls stint is to get promoted to Red Bull. If you can't prove over an extended period that you're worth a crack in the big boy team, then it's time for you to depart for pastures new.

That's what makes Lawson's case so interesting. This is Lawson's fourth F1 season...sort of. He drove five races for Racing Bulls in 2023 and the last seven of 2024, which was apparently enough to get him an audition alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull to open the 2025 season.

No points from the first two races - and being the slowest car in both sprint and grand prix qualifying in China, after qualifying 18th in Australia - saw him planted unceremoniously back at Racing Bulls for the rest of that year, where he was outperformed by rookie team-mate Isack Hadjar.

That's usually enough to get a driver sent head-first toward the exit by itself, but Lawson was granted a seat on the merry-go-round when Hadjar got promoted to replace Yuki Tsunoda, with rookie Avrid Lindblad arriving at the junior team in his stead. Not even Racing Bulls actually want to go into a season with two rookies, so Lawson stayed for 2026, and he thrived.

So...now what? Despite his three-race cameo when Hadjar was injured, Lawson won't be promoted to Red Bull barring something going spectacularly wrong (Hadjar's contract has been extended through '27), and that's the core premise of the Racing Bulls team.

And the Liam Lawson verdict is...

Despite all of the above, the answer is that they should probably extend his deal. There's a fundamental issue in replacing him with Tsolov, which is that both the Bulgarian and Lindblad are teenagers. There's a junior team, and then there's a creche.

In many ways, Lawson can serve as a souped-up version of the role Yuki Tsunoda's played in the last few years, providing at least a little bit of experience and being a benchmark by which the younger of the team's two drivers can be judged by. Less 'you must be this tall to ride', and more 'you must be able to beat a competent, experienced team-mate to be promoted'.

Tsolov's development may stall slightly if he's moved into a test/reserve role for next year but a season of sim work and being around the team, allowed to develop at a gentler pace, may be a boon.

Lindblad, too, should benefit from not suddenly having to be the team's lead driver as a 19-year-old. This is sensible driver development. If he earns that title at some point next year - much as Kimi Antonelli did in his second season at Mercedes - then so much the better.

Lawson, for his part, gets at least another year at the very top of the sport, as well as a chance to convince non-Red Bull affiliated teams that he's more than worth a look to fill one of their seats for 2028. If Alpine aren't looking at him in the midfield battle and thinking that he'd be an upgrade on Franco Colapinto (and with a less troublesome fanbase), they should be.