Verstappen knows who he wants to replace Lambiase at Red Bull

In early April, the Austrian team announced that Lambiase will leave in due course. From 2028, he will start working at McLaren, where he will take on the role of Chief Racing Officer. In that position, he will work closely with team principal Andrea Stella, although Laurent Mekies understands that Lambiase will simply become the team principal of the British outfit.

In any case, Verstappen will get a new race engineer after working with Lambiase for more than ten seasons. Speaking to Viaplay, he jokes with Christijan Albers, who knows both Lambiase and Mekies well, that the former F1 driver trained Red Bull to work with Verstappen: “Well, I don’t think so,” laughs Albers, who then turns to Verstappen. “When does the collaboration with your new engineer begin?”

Verstappen says the onboarding process will start gradually: “That will go step by step,” he says. “I do have ideas about who I want, of course. He’s also already walking around within the team. I think it will just happen gradually. At the moment, it hasn’t started yet anyway,” continues the four-time world champion. “I think it’s still a bit too early for that.”

The two still have at least a season and a half to go together, so for now Verstappen isn’t thinking at all about onboarding a new race engineer. “It’s logical that at a certain point, somewhere toward the end of the year, slow changes will come. At a certain point, less information will also be shared. He (Lambiase, ed.) understands that himself,” said Verstappen.

Since Lambiase will start at McLaren right from the beginning of the 2028 season, and will fully complete the 2027 season at Red Bull, there is no gardening leave. Although Lambiase isn’t directly involved in the development of the car, Red Bull naturally does not want to hand any knowledge advantage to the competition.

On the day of the announcement, April 9, GPblog spoke exclusively with former Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko about the Lambiase news. He hinted at a replacement for the Brit. “The team is very big and we have a number of very good, young engineers. A replacement will certainly be found, someone with some experience in a similar role – whoever that may be,” the Austrian told this website.

Speaking to Austrian media, Marko also pointed to the arrival of Andrea Landi at Red Bull. “Successful people are always poached. Lambiase was in the spotlight because of Max. They’ve brought in a replacement from Ferrari,” said Marko. Who the definitive replacement will be remains to be seen.