Permane Gets Racing Bulls Extension as Lawson's 2026 Seat Stays Open

Racing Bulls has signed Alan Permane to a long-term extension running to 2031. The deal is well earned, but the timing puts the team's driver line-up under a sharper spotlight. Liam Lawson's future, by his own description, remains "blurry" at best.

A long-overdue commitment to the man running the team

Permane holds the title of co-CEO at Racing Bulls, where he focuses on sporting matters alongside his role as team principal. He joined the squad in 2024 after a 34-year career at the Enstone base, a site that has carried the Benetton, Renault and several other identities over the decades. His tenure has been one of steady, incremental gains rather than a single headline moment, and the results are now visible in the standings.

Racing Bulls is on course to finish fifth in the constructors' championship, which would be the best result in the team's Formula 1 history. Permane has overseen that climb, so the extension reads as a sensible piece of continuity for a squad that is clearly on an upward curve.

Where the timing gets awkward

Lawson has played a central part in that fifth-place push. He is out of contract at the end of this season and sits ninth in the drivers' championship on 83 points. Strip out the points he and Arvid Lindblad picked up during the three races Lawson spent in a Red Bull mid-season, and he leads his rookie team-mate 69-32 in the standings. Lindblad's one-lap pace has been strong this year, but Lawson has used his experience well and become a clear leader inside the car pairing.

Here's the thing: the team is still waiting on a decision about its 2026 line-up. Lawson, Lindblad and Formula 2 title contender Nikola Tsolov are all in the frame, and the team has yet to confirm who will race next year. Back in September, Permane said a call would come "in the coming weeks" and that he wanted "to take a little bit more time and make sure we get the right pairing for next year." That pause has now stretched a long way, and Tsolov has been the next-in-line name for quite some time.

What the team is really weighing

Permane was candid about the criteria. Speed and pace top the list, he said, but the team also has to think about what each driver can offer over the longer term. Racing Bulls wants to develop young talent, and it wants to see how those drivers progress.

That is where the ownership structure matters. Racing Bulls operates under the Red Bull umbrella, and Red Bull effectively controls driver decisions across both teams. Lawson was dropped from the senior squad after just two races last year, and Red Bull doesn't appear to see him as a long-term option at either outfit. Verstappen and Isack Hadjar are settled at Red Bull Racing, so the senior team's line-up offers Lawson no obvious route back in the near term.

Racing Bulls' main sporting purpose remains feeding talent into the senior team. Lawson's form suggests he deserves a deeper look, but a development-focused operation will always weigh a driver's ceiling against the next prospect in the pipeline. Lindblad is a rookie with a strong one-lap record and a longer horizon. Tsolov is a proven junior title contender. Neither is a sure thing, but both fit the model the team is built around.

A mid-season flashpoint with a lasting cost

Lawson's situation has also been complicated by events beyond pure pace. An unnecessary run-in with Max Verstappen in Mexico drew criticism, and Verstappen followed it with a remark about Lawson's uncertain future. Who was more to blame matters less than the fact that the exchange seems to have shifted something in how Lawson's position is viewed.

In Brazil, Lawson said he "definitely didn't think it'd have such an impact." He finished seventh after starting from the pitlane, a strong result, but admitted the weekend's events weighed on him. "Every day was just a hard day with everything that was happening," he said. "Even though the race was great, I probably hadn't quite got over the weekend's…or the things that had happened over that weekend."

What to watch next

Lawson might still come out ahead of all this. A decision could land soon, and it could confirm him as the team's leading driver for 2026. But the bigger story is how odd it is that the season in which Lawson has made his most convincing case to stay in F1 is also the one in which his seat is least secure. Tsolov deserves a shot sooner or later, and the team's long-term plan probably points that way. Still, if Racing Bulls keeps prioritising the senior team's needs, Lawson's current form may not be enough to keep him in the car.

My read is that the extension for Permane is a sign of stability at the top of the team. The next announcement, whenever it comes, will say far more about what Racing Bulls values most: the best driver on the grid right now, or the next name in the Red Bull pipeline.