Laurent Mekies has offered an insight into Red Bull’s recruitment policy in the wake of the news that Max Verstappen’s long-time Race Engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, is to leave the team for McLaren.
Lambiase is set to join the current World Champions no later than 2028, with his current Red Bull deal expiring at the end of 2027. He will become Chief Racing Officer, supporting Andrea Stella with the running of the trackside team.
Lambiase is the latest in a long list of experienced players to have left Red Bull in the last few years. Rob Marshall and Will Courtenay have already left and joined McLaren, while Jonathan Wheatley left the team for Audi.
Adrian Newey was perhaps the most high-profile loss, the legendary designer heading to Aston Martin.
But Mekies was keen to highlight that losing talent is not always a negative in the fast-paced world of F1.
“In terms of replacing GP [Lambiase], we have a couple of years to think about it, but jokes aside, look, we are quite proud,” he explained.
“As much as I said many times, we don’t want to be defensive about the fact that we lost some talent, it’s a fact, and it’s been there for three or four years and as a result of that, it’s the highest priority in the team to make sure that we create the environment in order to retain, develop and attract the best talent in the pit lane.
“We feel we have the best talent already, departments by departments, and that starts with Ben [Waterhouse] on the power unit side for his team and with Pierre [Wache] on the chassis side and his team.
“And under them, we feel we have the best talent, departments by departments. When we can, we will always try to see how we can promote internally. We have created a number of talents over the last few years, and we are proud of that, we want to continue.”
Red Bull might not have had the start to the season – nor indeed the new era of regulations – that they would have hoped for, but they remain seen as one of the ‘big four’ teams and as such, will always be an attractive place to work.
And while Mekies clearly wants to promote from within where possible, he is not afraid to go looking elsewhere if needs be.
“If and when we need to go and get a specific set of skills or experience from some of our dear competitors around the pit lane, we will do it,” he continued. “As we have done, you have seen last couple of weeks ago, we had a very good mix in our new structure, a very good mix of internal promotion with Ben Waterhouse having now an extended parameters and with Andrea Landi joining soon [from Racing Bulls].
“We go and give the best chance to our talents and if we need to go elsewhere to inject, we will do it happily.”
Red Bull sit fourth in the Championship standings behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren after four rounds of the season.
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