F1's replacement drivers: the cameos that made - and ended - careers

As the Formula 1 paddock arrived at Zandvoort for the resumption of the season after the summer break, Liam Lawson got another surprise call to replace an injured driver, three years after he had done just that at the same venue.

Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar injured his wrist during training over the shutdown, and Red Bull’s solution was to recall Lawson, back in the senior car barely 18 months after he was dropped from it following just two races.

It’s the second time Zandvoort has changed the course of Lawson’s career.

The Kiwi made his F1 debut at the same circuit in 2023, thrown into an AlphaTauri seat after Daniel Ricciardo broke his hand in practice, a cameo that eventually helped fast-track him into Red Bull colours, before it just as quickly cost him his seat.

Now he gets to write another chapter of that story in the very place it started.

Although it’s not Lawson’s case this time, it’s the dream of any reserve driver looking to capitalise on a rare opportunity in the spotlight.

Sometimes a substitute appearance can remind watching team principals of a talent that had fallen off the radar.

In other occasions, it confirms why they no longer have a regular seat.

Here are some of the drivers who have made their mark – for good or bad – as eleventh-hour replacements.

Pedro de la Rosa

In the days before current testing restrictions, reserve drivers at least had a fighting chance because they were familiar with the car. After two years at Jaguar with little success, Pedro de la Rosa moved across to McLaren for the 2003 season as test driver for the team and logged many miles for the team on the test track.

When Juan Pablo Montoya suffered a hairline fracture in his shoulder playing tennis ahead of the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix, de la Rosa had his chance, three years after his last F1 race. It was hardly an easy return, with record high temperatures recorded on the Sunday reaching 42.5 degrees celsius.

He outqualified team-mate Kimi Räikkönen on the Saturday and after a battle with Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button during the race, ended up a respectable fifth with four championship points to show for his efforts.

It wasn’t the last time he replaced Montoya either. The following season he was called upon after the former departed Formula 1 for NASCAR mid-season, and he went on to score his only F1 podium at the Hungarian Grand Prix that season, finishing as runner up to Jenson Button.

Despite de la Rosa’s obvious pace, there was no space on the grid for him the following season. However, he did return in 2010 with Sauber, at the age of 38, eventually ending his career with the Spanish HRT team.

Luca Badoer

Replacement drivers often have little to lose when they are parachuted in to a race seat. It brings a chance to revive a career that has often stalled, and with low expectations given their lack of recent race experience.

But Luca Badoer’s substitute appearance for Ferrari is a cautionary tale of how an underwhelming appearance can overshadow an entire reputation.

After an unfortunate practice accident at Hungary in 2009, when a stray spring from Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn GP car struck the helmet of Felipe Massa, the Brazilian spent the remainder of the season on the sidelines as he recovered from surgery. There was a great deal of speculation on who would replace him at Ferrari alongside Räikkönen.

Michael Schumacher tested for the team ahead of an expected return, but wasn’t fully fit because of a neck injury suffered during his own crash on a superbike. In the end, it was the team’s longstanding test driver Badoer who got the nod, and the Italian was dropped in at the deep end in what was a difficult and uncompetitive season for the Scuderia.

A Formula 3000 champion who had been testing for Ferrari since 1998, Badoer lasted just two races in which he finished 17th and 14th respectively, while Räikkönen achieved a win and podium in both respective rounds. Following the Belgian Grand Prix and another Italian’s stellar performance, Giancarlo Fisichella was recruited from Force India to see out the season for Ferrari, though he could only manage a best finish of ninth in the subsequent races.

Patrick Tambay

Patrick Tambay had already driven in Formula 1 before his time with Ferrari in 1982. Prior to that, he achieved points finishes with Theodore Racing in 1977 before he moved across to McLaren for the 1978 and ’79 seasons.

His chance with the Prancing Horse came in tragic circumstances though after the death of his close friend, Gilles Villeneuve. In his fourth race for the team, Tambay recorded his first F1 win at the 1982 German Grand Prix, but team-mate Didier Pironi suffered his career-ending accident on the same weekend.

Tambay went on to record his second and final win the following year, coming at the San Marino Grand Prix in a Ferrari that bore the number 27. He dedicated his victory to Villeneuve on an emotional afternoon in which both Ferraris appeared on the podium.

Stoffel Vandoorne

A spectacular accident for Fernando Alonso during the season-opening race in Melbourne ruled the Spaniard out of the Bahrain Grand Prix having sustained broken ribs in the crash. It meant McLaren’s reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne was called in to deputise for him.

Fresh from winning the 2015 GP2 championship, the Belgian drove a measured race to score a point on debut with 10th position, becoming the first reserve driver to score points in their first race since Sebastian Vettel did so with BMW Sauber at the 2007 United States Grand Prix.

His performance was obviously impressive enough that the team named him as Jenson Button’s replacement for the 2017 season after the British driver announced his retirement from the sport. Button himself would be back to fill in for Alonso at the that year’s Monaco GP.

Alongside the double world champion though, Vandoorne struggled to replicate his impressive junior formula showings on a consistent basis, and the team opted to let him leave the team at the end of the 2018 season.

Vandoorne was a reserve driver to Mercedes‘ factory F1 team, as well as to Racing Point. But he was racing in Formula E when Sergio Perez was diagnosed with Covid in 2020. In a salutory lesson of the need to be in the right place at the right time, Vandoorne missed a chance to return to the F1 grid and the opportunity fell to Hülkenberg.

Nico Hülkenberg

No driver has made a habit of the eleventh-hour call-up quite like Nico Hülkenberg.

Dropped by Renault at the end of 2019, he was without a seat for 2020 and looked to be another promising career squeezed out by F1’s numbers game.

Then the pandemic intervened.

When Sergio Pérez tested positive for Covid-19 on the eve of the British Grand Prix, Racing Point turned to Hülkenberg with barely a day’s notice.

A sheared clutch bolt denied him the start, but a week later, in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at the same venue, he qualified a sensational third and finished seventh — a result few full-time drivers would have managed on a single race weekend’s re-acclimatisation.

The most remarkable act came two months later, again with Racing Point. With Lance Stroll unwell on the morning of qualifying at the Nürburgring, Hülkenberg — who had arrived at the track only for broadcasting duties — passed a Covid test, pulled on a race suit with less than an hour to spare, and went straight into qualifying having not turned a lap of practice all weekend.

He still finished eighth.

It was, by his own admission, the most he could do to advertise himself to the paddock, and it worked. The performances earned him a reserve role at Aston Martin, then two more “Hulkenback” cameos in 2022 when Sebastian Vettel caught Covid, and eventually a full-time return to the grid with Haas in 2023.

He’s been racing ever since, and finally took his first F1 podium at Silverstone in 2025, 15 years, and one pandemic, after his debut.

Sebastian Vettel

While one rookie by the name of Lewis Hamilton had grabbed many of the headlines in 2007, another announced himself on the F1 stage with a competitive debut. Following Robert Kubica’s massive accident at the preceding Canadian Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel was picked to replace the Pole for the following race, stepping up from his reserve driver role with BMW Sauber.

At just 19 years-old, Vettel notched up the quickest penalty of an F1 career for speeding in the pitlane during practice for the 2007 US Grand Prix, just nine seconds after leaving the garage. The German rebounded from the minor setback on Sunday to score a point on his debut in eighth place.

It was a result that netted him a drive with Toro Rosso before the season was out, replacing Scott Speed. He scored a memorable victory for the Faenza team in Italy the following year in wet conditions to become F1’s youngest-ever race winner, and from that point he never looked back.

Promotion to Red Bull for 2009 led to a run of four championship doubles for team and driver between 2010 and 2013. He departed to Ferrari to try and emulate his hero and compatriot Michael Schumacher and return the crown to Maranello, and despite not being successful in his efforts, now sits fourth on the all-time wins list in F1 on 53 victories, behind Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, and Max Verstappen.

Michael Schumacher

F1 could hardly have known at the time but Jordan’s super-sub was the next big thing. Thanks to some off-track trouble for Bertrand Gachot, a prison sentence kept him out of the car and Eddie Jordan dropped a young German by the name of Michael Schumacher into the empty seat.

It didn’t take him long to impress, recording a 1min 51.212sec lap of Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday for a brilliant seventh position on the grid, matching the team’s best result of the season to that point. Unfortunately for him, his Sunday lasted a matter of moments as his clutch failed on the opening lap of the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix, but he had already left his mark on the paddock.

His debut attracted the interest of Benetton and the German was immediately snapped up by the team for the remaining races of 1991 despite a court case brought by Jordan to try and retain him.

Schumacher notched up four points in the final races of ’91, with a fifth-place finish at the Italian GP the best result. One year on from his debut and at the same venue, Schumacher recorded his first F1 win. Between 1992 and 2006, he went on to add another 90 to his tally to become the now joint-most successful driver of all time.

Oliver Bearman

When Carlos Sainz was struck down with appendicitis on the eve of the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Ferrari turned to 18-year-old reserve driver Oliver Bearman.

The Briton had been busy claiming pole for Prema in that weekend’s Formula 2 race and suddenly found himself parachuted into a Formula 1 car for the first time in his career, with barely an hour’s notice.

Bearman had never driven the SF-24 in anger before Friday’s final practice. He qualified 11th, then produced a mature, mistake-free drive to finish seventh, outscoring both Williams cars and becoming the youngest driver ever to start a grand prix for Ferrari.

Team-mate Charles Leclerc was full of praise afterwards, and it was hard to disagree: for a teenager thrown in at one of the sport’s most demanding, most watched teams, it was about as complete a cameo as F1 had seen since Vettel’s own bow.

Bearman was in a Haas seat by the following season, his F1 career effectively launched by five sessions he had almost no time to prepare for.

Liam Lawson

Not every cameo resolves itself quickly, as Lawson’s career over the past three years has proved.

Lawson’s F1 debut came at the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, when Daniel Ricciardo broke his hand in a practice crash, and AlphaTauri turned to its reserve driver with barely any time to prepare.

Lawson, who has been watching Ricciardo from the Red Bull garage, qualified last in the wet and fought his way to 13th in the race — an encouraging start that turned into a genuine breakthrough three races later, when he out-qualified Max Verstappen at Singapore and finished ninth to score his first points.

Lawson’s first cameo lasted five races before Ricciardo was back at the wheel.

It wasn’t enough to win him a seat for 2024; AlphaTauri stuck with Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, and Lawson went back to reserve duties, but the impression held.

When Ricciardo’s second stint faltered the following year, it was Lawson who replaced him again for the seven races remaining after the Singapore Grand Prix, and by 2025 he’d been promoted to partner Verstappen at Red Bull itself, only to be dropped after just two races and returned to what was now Racing Bulls.

Whether that makes Lawson’s 2023 cameo a career-making one is still an open question. It got him noticed, eventually got him promoted, and then got him dropped faster than almost anyone in recent memory.

It’s a reminder that a strong stand-in performance can open a door without guaranteeing what’s on the other side of it – a lesson Lawson is being asked to sit with again now, having been recalled once more to cover for an injured Isack Hadjar.