Goodbye Red Bull, this time for real: Will Courtenay starts as McLaren Sporting Director

End of gardening leave New year, new life. The historic popular proverb comes true for Will Courtenay, former historic Red Bull strategist who, starting from January 2026, will begin his job at McLaren in the role of sporting director. The English engineer himself announced it with a post on the social network LinkedIn, thus revealing the expiry of the long gardening leave period after the farewell to the Milton Keynes team made official in no less than September 2024, in the midst of the exodus which had also led to the farewell of Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley in just a few months. Red Bull then got in the way a bit by not facilitating Courtenay’s transition to the rival team, preventing the engineer from taking up employment at Woking until January 2026. The words of Will Courtenay “I am happy to announce that I am about to start carrying out my new role – writes Will Courtenay on LinkedIn – as sporting director at McLaren Racing. After 22 years at Red Bull, the last 15 of which spent as head of strategies, I am excited in saying that I am embarking on a new challenge by joining McLaren as the new Sporting Director. I want to thank all the people I have worked with at Red Bull. Over the years I have created many friendships and I hope to see most of you back in the paddock. “Now – continues the English engineer – I can’t wait to settle into my new role and my new team, with the hope of making many new friends and giving my best to help McLaren continue its recent streak of success in the coming seasons too”. Replacing Will Courtenay as head of strategy at Red Bull will be Hannah Schmitz, considered one of the best on the grid in the strategy sector after some bold tactical choices such as the one that allowed Red Bull to bypass the Ferrari wall by winning the 2022 Monaco GP with Sergio Perez.