Red Bull, goodbye Lambiase is the tip of the iceberg: “The empire has collapsed. It is inevitable that Verstappen will go away”

Yet another farewell Without a doubt the most important news that has been made official so far in this long spring break of Formula 1 has been that of Giampiero Lambiase’s future farewell to Red Bull. The man who for a decade was Max Verstappen’s guardian angel on the pit wall, developing a bond with the Dutch driver that goes far beyond the ‘simple’ driver-engineer relationship, will arrive at McLaren “no later than 2028”. Naturally, the comments regarding this next change of jersey have been numerous, especially in reference to what the impact of this choice on Verstappen could be. The four-time world champion continues to flirt with the idea of ​​a farewell to F1, disappointed by the new technical regulations and the lack of competitiveness of his Red Bull, and in the past he had made no secret of having difficulty imagining his own future in the Circus without Lambiase at his side. According to Jolyon Palmer, former F1 driver and now appreciated commentator for the official F1 website, Lambiase’s farewell is only “the tip of the iceberg” of the internal landslide that the Austro-English team is experiencing and the “inevitable” consequence of all this will be Verstappen’s departure. An “inevitable” decision “Red Bull is not competitive and the path to becoming competitive again is certainly not the simplest if you consider all the staff who have left – observed Palmer during the last episode of the F1 Nation podcast, recalling the series farewells of the various Horner, Marko, Newey, Marshall and Wheatley just to mention the names best known to the general public – for me Lambiase is a fundamental figure; in a certain sense he acts as a trait d’union between the driver and the team. I see this as another reason why Max is not happy in the team. I simply don’t see how he can stay for a long time, probably beyond the end of this year. [in Red Bull] have no concrete plan and show clear signs of progress. The whole house has changed – added Palmer, with a real estate metaphor – the building is the same, but all the furnishings have disappeared. He still turns up for work in Milton Keynes, but he greets different people in all the different areas. Not only that: he isn’t fighting for the title and doesn’t like driving these cars. It seems to me that it is inevitable [che se ne vada]“Others must see this situation as the collapse of an empire – concluded the former British driver – this is a great team with all the successes it has achieved, the ruthlessness with which it has chased those successes, the way in which it has managed to make the most of its potential in all aspects. Now they’re all leaving. We’re talking about Lambiase, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you consider all the people who left, it was a difficult time for Red Bull. I wondered if things would stabilize a bit with Mekies at the helm and if the fallout from Christian Horner’s departure would subside, but when you see so many other big names leaving it probably means it’s not that attractive for people to join them.”