On Friday morning, Red Bull announced a “series of organisational changes within its technical department” aimed at “reinforcing its focus on performance and innovation."

Specifically, the Austrian outfit have promoted Head of Performance Engineering Ben Waterhouse to Chief Performance and Design Engineer.

With responsibility overarching across Design and Vehicle Performance, Waterhouse will report to the team’s Technical Director, Pierre Waché.

Elsewhere, Deputy Technical Director at the sister team Racing Bulls, Andrea Landi, will plug the gap left by Waterhouse’s promotion, beginning his work as Red Bull’s new Head of Performance on July 1.

In 2003, Waterhouse joined Jaguar (the team Red took over in 2005) as a structural analysis engineer, and returned to the Milton Keynes team in 2018 after stints at BMW Sauber and Toro Rosso (now Racing Bulls).

Landi will arrive at Red Bull also with a high level of F1 experience, having served as not only the Deputy Technical Director at Racing Bulls, but also the Deputy Head of Vehicle Performance at Ferrari.

Elsewhere, Verstappen has given his first public reaction to the news that race engineer of ten years, Gianpiero 'GP' Lambiase, will join McLaren in 2028.

'GP' joins the papaya team as Chief Racing Officer "no later" than the 2028 season, adding to a long list of high profile figures to leave Red Bull in recent years.

In December, Verstappen lost another pillar of his F1 life in Helmut Marko, the former Red Bull advisor responsible for bringing him, Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel through to F1.

Speaking to Viaplay, Verstappen revealed conversations he had with Lambiase prior to the news, sharing his view that 'GP' would have been "daft" not to take McLaren's offer.

He said: "He told me what kind of offer he’d received. I said: ‘You’d be daft not to take it.’"

"We’ve already achieved everything together and then he gets such a fantastic offer, especially with his family in mind and the security it would bring him.

"He asked me for my approval, so to speak, and I told him he absolutely had to go for it. He really wanted to hear that from me."