F1 shuffle: Red Bull to McLaren
Gianpiero Lambiase — a key figure at Red Bull — is set to move to McLaren as Chief Racing Officer by 2028, a change that already has the paddock buzzing about long‑term team structures. (x.com) That news arrived alongside talk of Mercedes’ strong start to the season and McLaren’s marketing push (including a teaser with Martin Garrix), suggesting teams are both reshuffling leadership and amplifying brand moments. (x.com) (x.com)
One of Max Verstappen’s most familiar voices on race day is leaving Red Bull, but not until 2028. Formula 1 confirmed on April 9 that Gianpiero Lambiase will join McLaren as Chief Racing Officer when his Red Bull contract expires. (formula1.com) Lambiase is not just a headset on the radio. He has been Verstappen’s race engineer since Verstappen moved up to Red Bull in 2016, which means he has been the person turning car data, pit wall calls, and driver feedback into lap-by-lap decisions for a decade by the time he leaves. (formula1.com) McLaren is not hiring him for the same seat. McLaren said he will arrive as Chief Racing Officer, which is a senior management job above the usual race-engineer role and part of a wider structure around Team Principal Andrea Stella and Chief Executive Officer Zak Brown. (mclaren.com) That timing matters because 2028 is far enough away that this is really a bet on the next era, not the next race. Formula 1’s 2026 rules already brought smaller, lighter cars, more battery power, and 100 percent sustainable fuel, so teams are building long-term organizations around a very different technical game. (mclaren.com) McLaren is making that bet from a position of strength. Formula 1’s own 2026 team preview said McLaren came into this season after winning both championships in 2025, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri kept on for a fourth straight year. (formula1.com) Mercedes, though, has been the early pace-setter in the new rules. Formula 1 described Melbourne on March 8 as a “perfect” start for Mercedes, and Autosport reported that the Mercedes W17 looked like a significant step forward at the opener. (formula1.com) (autosport.com) That is why a staffing move and a marketing push are showing up in the same week. When the competitive order is shifting, teams try to lock down two things at once: the people who can win in three years and the audience they want to own next month. (formula1.com) (mclaren.com) McLaren has been especially aggressive on the second part in the United States. On March 10 it announced “McLaren Racing Live: Miami,” a five-day fan event running from April 29 to May 3 around the team’s 1,000th Grand Prix, which shows how much effort it is putting into turning race weekends into broader entertainment. (mclaren.com) The Martin Garrix angle fits that same playbook. Formula 1 had already announced in September 2025 that Garrix would headline the 2026 Dutch Grand Prix finale, and McLaren’s recent use of his name in teasers plugs the team into a music audience that goes well beyond people who know what a front wing is. (formula1.com) Red Bull still has two full seasons before Lambiase leaves, so nothing changes on Verstappen’s radio tomorrow. But once a team publicly confirms that a figure this senior is exiting on a fixed date, every future contract, promotion, and succession plan around that garage starts getting read through that lens. (motorsport.com) (formula1.com)
