McLaren signs top engineer
McLaren has confirmed it signed Gianpiero Lambiase, Max Verstappen’s race engineer at Red Bull, though the move does not take effect until 2028 — a long‑lead paddock shakeup. (autosport.com) The hiring signals teams are already planning multi‑year engineering moves even as this season’s calendar and safety debates unfold. (autosport.com)
McLaren just hired the voice most Formula One fans know from Max Verstappen’s radio, but it will not get him until 2028. Gianpiero Lambiase is leaving Red Bull to become McLaren’s chief racing officer when his current contract ends. (mclaren.com) A race engineer is the person who sits on the pit wall, talks to the driver every lap, and turns tire wear, weather, and strategy data into plain instructions at 200 miles per hour. Lambiase has done that job for Verstappen since Verstappen joined Red Bull in 2016. (formula1.com) That driver-engineer pairing became one of the sport’s defining partnerships. Verstappen won four straight world championships from 2021 through 2024 with Lambiase as the calm, blunt voice in his ear on race day. (formula1.com) Lambiase was not only Verstappen’s radio link. Red Bull promoted him to head of racing in 2024, which put him above a wider slice of trackside operations than a normal single-car engineer handles. (gpfans.com) McLaren is not bringing him in as a side character. Its statement says he will report directly to team principal Andrea Stella, and that the chief racing officer job already sits at the center of the team’s race-weekend structure. (mclaren.com) The long delay is part of the story. Red Bull says Lambiase leaves in 2028 when his contract expires, while McLaren says it expects to welcome him “no later than 2028,” which tells you this was negotiated years before he will actually change uniforms. (autosport.com) Formula One teams do this because modern race teams are built like traveling tech companies with 24 grand prix weekends, simulator programs, and hundreds of staff tied to one decision chain. If you want to change how the pit wall thinks on Sunday, you often have to hire the people who built that system somewhere else. (mclaren.com, formula1.com) For Red Bull, the awkward part is not immediate performance but succession planning. Verstappen keeps Lambiase through 2026 and 2027, yet the team now has a fixed date when one of its most trusted senior engineers walks out the door. (formula1.com) For McLaren, this is a bet that its current rise is not enough on its own. The team that won the 2024 Constructors’ Championship is still adding senior race-day leadership from a direct rival instead of freezing the organization in place. (espn.com) So the headline is not really about one engineer changing employers. It is about Formula One teams now planning 2028 pit walls while they are still racing the 2026 calendar, because in this sport the next title fight often starts years before the cars line up on the grid. (autosport.com, apnews.com)
