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Red Bull have addressed the departure of Gianpiero Lambiase publicly for the first time. Team principal Laurent Mekies used the opportunity to set out how the team is thinking about replacement and succession, and to push back against the idea that losing prominent figures is a uniquely damaging problem for them.
The Search Is Already Underway
Mekies confirmed the team has time but is not standing still. "We still have a few years to think about a successor for GP," he said with a degree of lightness before shifting to the more substantive point. "But without joking: we are also proud of the fact that people from our team are sought after. That means you are doing something right." The reframing is deliberate. Red Bull have lost Newey, Wheatley, Marshall, Courtenay, and now Lambiase. Mekies is choosing to interpret that as a sign of the quality they develop rather than a structural weakness.
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Internal First, External If Needed
His preference is clear. "We want to create the environment where the best people want to stay, develop, and also come to us. We feel that in almost every department we have top people, from the power unit to the chassis." But he was not ruling out external hiring if the right expertise is not available internally. "If we are missing certain expertise, we will not hesitate to look elsewhere in the pit lane. We have done that recently. We combine internal promotions with targeted external additions. In the end it is about giving our people the best opportunities and keeping the team as strong as possible."
Lambiase's role as Verstappen's race engineer across the years of their greatest success makes his replacement one of the most sensitive decisions the team will make. Whoever takes that position will be working alongside a driver who has never had to build a new engineering relationship during a championship campaign. How Verstappen responds to the transition will be watched as closely as the lap times.
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