Mekies surprises Lambiase: “He will be team principal in McLaren”

Giampiero Lambiase, Max Verstappen’s historic race engineer who has already been hired by McLaren for the future and who will arrive in Woking no later than the 2028 season, is back at the center of discussion in the paddock. But what will Lambiase’s role be once he is dressed in papaya? Andrea Stella and Zak Brown had explained that Verstappen’s current race engineer would be a sort of right-hand man of Stella himself, allowing the Italian manager to ‘delegate’ some of his current skills. Formally, Lambiase’s role will be that of Chief Racing Officer. Today however, speaking to Sky Sports F1, Mekies revealed that Lambiase will be the real team principal of McLaren, not a simple ‘second in command’ to Stella: “Lambiase has had an extraordinary opportunity. He will become team principal there. [Non posso] do something else [se non] wish him all the best. “You still have two long years with us. We all tell each other that we want these two whole years to be very successful and that’s what we’re focusing on,” Mekies said. If this assessment were true one could imagine Stella being further promoted to a further higher role, almost beyond Zak Brown. Unless we want to go back to suggesting the hypothesis of a change of colors for the current team principal, which however has been categorically excluded by the person concerned and which at the moment looks a lot like fantasy Formula 1 rather than a real possibility. Mekies then also spoke about the many departures of technicians, engineers and managers that Red Bull is facing in recent years: “We don’t want to take a defensive attitude in this regard. We have lost several key figures in the last four or five years, it’s true – admitted Mekies – we take this thing very seriously and everything we do is to try to guarantee the best possible environment to attract, train and retain our staff. I am confident that it is an area in which we will be successful. Will it be a linear path, with no one leaving anymore? No. This team is developing talent. We are very proud to be able to count on internal promotions whenever possible. If we need to look for a specific combination of skills or experience in the pit lane, we will, and we will be happy to do so.”

Automobile Magazine – F1 English News
2026-05-02 05:50:00