Six seats yet to be filled for 2026

Six seats remain available on the 2026 F1 grid following the announcement that Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas will drive for the new Cadillac team.
 
While some outfits are expected to maintain their present line-ups, albeit after some protracted brinksmanship behind the scenes, others are rightly the subject of great intrigue. In the overall Red Bull set-up, only Max Verstappen is contractually nailed on beyond 2025; the remaining three are in flux owing to infighting, executive caprice, and the ever-present up-or-out policy of Red Bull’s young driver program.
 
Pierre Gasly is staying at Alpine while the identity of the driver in the other seat appears largely dependent on which side of bed Flavio Braitore emerges from on the day in question.

Mercedes

Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen? Not quite, but Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff likes to keep his options open and is seldom in a hurry to close long-term deals; through 2023, you’ll recall, he engaged in a prolonged contractual dance with Lewis Hamilton, concluding in a ‘one plus one’ deal which Lewis ultimately deemed unsatisfactory. Hence, he now races in red.
 
Both Mercedes seats are presently open for 2026, and George Russell and Kimi Antonelli come to the end of their current deals – in Antonelli’s case, a one-year contract. Wolff is known to have been in discussions with Verstappen and his management, but Max has prudently elected to remain where he is for next year and assess the competitive order under the new technical regulations.
 
From a position of weakness, Russell therefore found himself with a stronger hand during the summer, saying in Spa that he has “nothing to be concerned about”. He remains “sort of managed and controlled by Mercedes”, so agreeing a contract for 2026 and beyond is understood to be merely a question of details.
 
Based on his performances so far this season in a capricious car, it would be bold to suggest that any other driver could do a better job.
 
Performance-wise, Antonelli is on a stickier wicket but Mercedes’ reversion to a previous rear-suspension geometry appears to have helped his confidence. Wolff and Mercedes have invested a great deal of time and energy into Antonelli’s career and, sunk cost fallacy notwithstanding, it would be premature to cast him out after one season.
 
‘Benching’ Antonelli for a season and installing a more experienced driver next to Russell is among the less likely possibilities. It would further damage his confidence in the long term – and, as with Russell, there are few alternatives who could plug in and do a better job.
 
A Mick Schumacher comeback is highly unlikely and current reserve driver Frederik Vesti’s single-seater destiny is more likely to involve 100% electric power.

Red Bull

Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team

Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images

Yuki Tsunoda is walking a veritable tightrope in the second Red Bull racing seat at the moment. Despite the volumes of disingenuous cant uttered by senior figures within the organisation, including former team principal Christian Horner, the events of this season have served only to confirm the impression that this is a one-car, one-driver organisation.
 
Not only that, it has fallen into the vexatious and unwarranted habit of ‘punching down’ at the second driver, blaming them for its own failings. In the past year alone, Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson have been thrown under the bus, and Tsunoda has avoided joining them only because the list of potential replacements has dwindled.
 
Thus Tsunoda labours on, still saddled with an older spec of a peaky and pestilential car.
 
In the final week of the summer break, the dregs of the internet became greatly excited by the possibility of four-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou – currently the object of a $30m lawsuit by McLaren – replacing Tsunoda next season. The origin of the story was a speculative piece in the Indianapolis Star claiming “sources say” Red Bull was interested.
 
Palou is known to covet an F1 drive but both he and his management have been quick to deny any such discussions. Is he so desperate to make the jump to F1 that he would sever his 2026 Chip Ganassi Racing IndyCar contract and take up one of the most undesirable seats on the grid?
 
Isack Hadjar is another possibility but he has openly dug his heels in already. Red Bull’s next bullet in the chamber, in terms of its own driver-development ladder, is Arvid Lindblad – but, while he took the ‘rookie’ slot in FP1 at Silverstone this year courtesy of a superlicence exemption, he is more likely to be promoted to Racing Bulls first.
 
Second bite of the cherry for Liam Lawson?

Racing Bulls

Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls Team, Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls Team

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Both Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson are on one-year deals – Lawson because of his unsuccessful dalliance with Red Bull’s senior team, and Hadjar because there were those in the wider organisation who did not particularly rate him.
 
After a stuttering start in Melbourne, Hadjar has served up several consignments of humble pie by express delivery to his doubters this season. He has been assisted by a relatively benign car, but he has had the better of Lawson, who is still in confidence-rebuilding mode.
 
It’s understood that Hadjar is highly resistant to the notion of being promoted to the senior team right now – and rightly so. But, despite signing up to the 22 Ventures management company which also superintends the affairs of footballers Kylian Mbappe and Bukayo Saka, he remains a product of the Red Bull system and may be compelled to go.

Alpine

Franco Colapinto, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Among the poison chalices available to sup from in Formula 1, an Alpine ride is second only to the Red Bull garage alongside Verstappen. Gasly, a previous imbiber from that toxic vessel, is signed up for 2026, but the second seat is potentially open for anyone with a strong enough constitution.
 
Jack Doohan remains part of the Alpine set-up but is believed to be unlikely to return to the cockpit any time soon. Franco Colapinto, who replaced him early this season, was initially understood to be on a five-race evaluation deal, but those counting these off on their hands will soon run out of fingers.
 
De facto team principal Flavio Briatore remains inscrutable when asked what the deal is, giving a different response each time, like a malfunctioning set of kitchen scales. It’s understood that Colapinto, whose confidence seems to diminish every time he drives the A525, is effectively on a race-by-race arrangement – so he could find himself going the way of Doohan at any moment.
 
It’s like F1’s equivalent of The Pit and the Pendulum, albeit with Briatore rather than Vincent Price at the controls.