Ted Kravitz confirmed live on air during his post-qualifying notebook segment for Sky Sports F1 that Isack Hadjar will be Max Verstappen’s team-mate for the 2026 season. This means that Yuki Tsunoda is facing a fight to remain in the sport with only two rounds of the campaign remaining.

Tsunoda enjoyed his best finish of the season in any format in the sprint race on Saturday at the Qatar Grand Prix, finishing fifth despite picking up a five-second time penalty for track limit violations. However, his luck ran out in qualifying as he was eliminated in Q1 alongside Lewis Hamilton.

As Kravitz confirmed to Sky Sports viewers after qualifying at the Lusail International Circuit, Tsunoda is now looking to save his F1 career on Sunday in Doha. He is fighting Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad for two seats with Racing Bulls in 2026.

While walking past the Racing Bulls motorhome unit in his notebook segment, Kravitz explained: “And I can save you the announcement that all these nice people on the socials are going to make next week, that Isack Hadjar will be joining Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing.

“They’ve both been told. Yuki’s been told, Isack’s been told. Isaac couldn’t contain his excitement when he came to us on Thursday, and has been told, but can’t tell us, and Yuki couldn’t contain his disappointment when he came to us on Thursday, that he’s been told, and he’s a bit sad about it.

“So, I think it’s gonna be announced next week. Hope we haven’t previewed some kind of announcement that Isack Hadjar will be moving to Red Bull Racing and leaving Racing Bulls.

“We don’t know who’s gonna be joining Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls, but we think it’s probably gonna be Arvid Lindblad, leaving Yuki Tsunoda out of Formula One. But all will become clear next week, if I haven’t given it all away already.”

Hadjar’s memorable rookie season produced another highlight on Saturday as he qualified sixth for the Grand Prix. Only the McLaren and Mercedes drivers, as well as his team-mate-to-be Verstappen, will start ahead of him on the grid on Sunday.

“I think we really extracted the maximum from the car, as we couldn’t have finished higher up in the standings; P6 was really our best today,” Hadjar said after his P6 starting grid slot. “I felt the car was easy to drive, and I reached the limit pretty quickly in the session, then from there I just made tiny steps lap by lap.

“Looking at tomorrow, it’s going to be important to have a good start, even if we start from the wrong side of the grid. I expect it to be a full push race, and the target is to score points.”