Key takeaways from McLaren's move for Verstappen's Red Bull race engineer

Key takeaways from McLaren's move for Verstappen's Red Bull race engineer

Yahoo Sports1h ago7 min readOriginal source →

TL;DR

McLaren has hired Gianpiero Lambiase, previously a race engineer at Red Bull, to strengthen their trackside operations. He will serve as chief racing officer, assisting team principal Andrea Stella.

Motorsport photo

A shrewd signing from McLaren - Filip Cleeren

Hiring Gianpiero Lambiase makes a lot of sense for McLaren. A highly respected race engineer who has grown into a sort of head of trackside engineering role at Red Bull, the Briton will further shore up the trackside operation at a team that already has strong foundations.

Lambiase was in the frame for a very senior role at Aston Martin too, which led some to speculate that he could become Andrea Stella's replacement, a rumour that is unfounded. What has instead been confirmed by McLaren is that Lambiase will take on the role of chief racing officer, lending an extra pair of hands to Stella to help shoulder the immense load the modern day F1 team principal carries.

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Gone are the days where the team boss is the one pivotal anchor point involved in every single decision across the factory and the race team, in the mould of the likes of Ron Dennis and Frank Williams. With staff numbers now well north of 1000 people and F1 operations having become so extremely complex over the last decade, it's simply impossible for a team principal in the classic sense of the role to stay on top of everything.

With his engineering background, Stella had been performing a sort of overarching technical director role as well as his TP duties. By bringing in someone like Lambiase, he will be able to hand off some of those more detail-oriented trackside responsibilities to someone else, who we understand will slot into the role alongside his former Red Bull colleague Will Courtenay and sporting director Randy Singh.

It's a shrewd signing from Stella to set McLaren up for continued success over this regulatory period and the next. Some of the unforced errors the team made towards the end of the 2025 title battle shows one can never have enough strength in depth.

Jonathan Wheatley, Team Principal of Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber and Gianpiero Lambiase, Head of Racing of Oracle Red Bull Racing

McLaren is a logical destination for Lambiase - Ronald Vording

Lambiase has, for some time, been one of the most sought-after engineers in the F1 paddock, meaning the question was more when he would make a move than if he would eventually do so. And of course, above all, the question of where he would go remained. Last year, interest from Aston Martin and Williams already came to light, although McLaren is a logical destination for the widely praised engineer.

This move first and foremost underlines how the Woking-based team is constantly trying to think ahead with its leadership structure – regardless of what Stella may do in the future – while from Lambiase’s perspective, this is also an interesting prospect.

At Aston Martin, Lambiase had a good chance of becoming team principal, but all the positional changes in recent years do not necessarily point to the stability required – something Lawrence Stroll’s team will hopefully aim for when it eventually brings in Jonathan Wheatley.

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Williams, on the other hand, still has some other steps to take compared to McLaren, not least in terms of its facilities and infrastructure. Earlier this year, when the team missed the Barcelona shakedown, Vowles openly acknowledged that there is still work to be done, whereas McLaren has proven to be the benchmark in many of those areas – particularly in-season development.

The overall picture means that Lambiase, who is broadly deployable given his responsibilities at Red Bull, will join a team where the foundations are already strong. And should those foundations change at some point, he appears to be in a good position to potentially move up even further. In that sense, McLaren remains future-proof, while for Lambiase this seems like a comfortable landing spot – a logical destination for another challenge in his already successful F1 career.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

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Red Bull is a team on the slide. It backed up its dominant titles in 2022 and ‘23 by finishing third over the following two seasons and although that was respectable, this year it is so far away from a top three that Haas beating it to fourth appears increasingly likely.

There are various reasons behind its demise, but it obviously doesn’t help that several senior figures have left in recent years: Adrian Newey, Rob Marshall, Jonathan Wheatley and Will Courtenay, just to name a few. Now, Lambiase will join that list and the subsequent knock-on effect for somebody like Max Verstappen could be huge.

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Questions marks are already in place about the four-time world champion’s future given his dismay with F1's new regulations, but the departure of his long-time race engineer might just be the final thing that pushes him away. Particularly as Lambiase is lined up to join McLaren for 2028, the year Verstappen’s contract expires.

It is well known that pretty much everything at Red Bull revolves around the Dutchman, so once he goes, then where does that leave its entire F1 operation? The Austrian outfit would either need to figure out how to reinvent itself, or actually acknowledge a good opportunity to sell up. We understand that Christian Horner is on the lookout for an ownership stake somewhere…

Andrea Stella celebrates Fernando Alonso's win at the 2012 European Grand Prix

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The idea of Stella heading to Scuderia Ferrari is unfounded. The McLaren team principal remains firmly in place at Woking, where - alongside Zak Brown - he has helped build a structure capable of winning both the constructors’ championship and the drivers’ title last season with Lando Norris.

The fact that Lambiase will leave Red Bull Racing to join the papaya squad does not mean the Italian-British engineer will replace Stella. Contrary to some reports, Lambiase will not become team principal but will instead take on a senior role within McLaren’s structure, which the team has confirmed will be the position of chief racing officer.

A highly respected technician and meticulous organiser, Stella has been praised for his ability to unite the team through his leadership and human qualities. In 2028, when Lambiase arrives, Stella will hand over only some of the responsibilities he still covers, none of which relate to the traditional team principal role. So, why would he leave Woking?

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