Lambiase leaving: what next for Max + Red Bull? Can McLaren catch Mercedes in '26?

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0:32We've had some big news involving one of the most successful race engineers in the sport. Punchy move from GP. That's a big coup for McLaren. What does this all mean for Verstappen? Do we think this will just hasten his departure from Red Bull?

0:46Jolyon Palmer:That's exactly how I see it.

0:50James Hinchcliffe:When I read the news, the very first thought that I had was almost the other way around. Man, what does GP know that we don't?

0:57Jolyon Palmer:Other people must look at this as an empire falling.

1:00James Hinchcliffe:And this is where it's going to be, I think, a defining moment of Luan Mecchi's tenure. If Verstappen were to leave Red Bull, who would be at the top of your shopping list? Oh!

1:13Hello, everyone, and welcome to F1 Nation. I'm Tom Clarkson, here to provide your F1 fix with no racing in April. And joining me on the show, as usual, is former F1 driver Jolion Palmer and IndyCar race winner, James Hinchcliffe. Guys, great to have you on the show again. Later on, we're going to be talking to McLaren's technical director of performance to hear what's happening back at the factory between now and the Miami Grand Prix as they chase the pace-setting Mercedes. But first, we've had some big news involving one of the most successful race engineers in the sport, Gian Piero Lambiazzi, GP, as you might know him, is going to leave Red Bull and join McLaren.

1:59GP has been Max Verstappen's race engineer for the past 10 years and all 71 of Max's wins, including that first one in Spain back in 2016. In that time, they've won four drivers championships together, making them one of the most successful driver-engineer partnerships in F1 history. This isn't happening immediately. GP is going to remain with Red Bull as Verstappen's engineer until 2028, when he'll join McLaren as chief racing officer. It's another big-name departure from Red Bull, and it may affect Max's future as well. So, guys, can I get your initial reaction to this news? JP, it's seismic, isn't it?

2:44Jolyon Palmer:It's really big. I mean, one of the prominent figures that's not a racing driver now, His relationship with Max has been so well documented. They get on so well. He has now risen up the ranks of Red Bull as well. So he's the head of their race engineering team. And that's a big coup for McLaren, I think. It's another sort of nail in the coffin of Red Bull, it feels like, to lose yet another key personnel. And yeah, for McLaren, bringing in that wealth of experience, obviously GP is is incredibly talented at what he does he's got a great understanding not only of of how to build a fast race car but how to deal with a world champion that is pretty ruthless in in terms of what he wants and his demands and he knows and he's another person that goes to McLaren with a full knowledge of of how Red Bull operates so he's bringing the rivals information in-house to McLaren uh as you say not immediately but is Red Bull have got to be careful because a bit like driver swaps you know they don't want gp to be learning all the information before uh before the switch in 2028 either i mean hench remind us of the importance of the race engineered driver relationship why is it so so special and what made this so special i mean without sitting in

4:04James Hinchcliffe:engineering meetings with them it's it's tough to to tell you exactly why these two work so well Um, but, but they obviously did. And the reason that that relationship is, is arguably the most important one on the team is the drivers out there getting all this feedback from the race car. It's all a feeling, right? It's all a second nature thing to a driver. Being able to verbalize it is, is a key strength and a key asset for a racing driver. That's a key ability that a racing driver needs is being able to really dissect and explain in detail what the race car is doing and what you need out of the race car.

4:40James Hinchcliffe:That engineer then needs to understand that language because let's be honest, drivers have varying degrees of communication skills and finding a driver engineer pairing that really just speak the same language, understand each other. You know, we've talked, I think a lot in the past about how race engineers these days almost need to be, you know, 75 % race engineer, 25 % driver engineer, psychologist, coach, cheerleader. That's a big part of it. You're engineering the whole package. There's the mechanical element in the race car, but there is a human element that you also sort of have to engineer.

5:15James Hinchcliffe:And finding that balance is so difficult. That's why when you see a successful pairing, they tend to stick together. I mean, Lewis Hamilton's won most of his races and championships with one engineer, with Bono. Max has won all of his races with one engineer. Michael Schumacher Ross Braun did most of their damage together. It's not like these drivers that have won two, three, four championships do it with different engineers. You find your person, you stick with them.

5:41Jolyon Palmer:Hinch, I was reminded in 2023, do you remember when Max won all but three races? And I think we were trying to work out something to say in the media because we basically knew what was going to happen when we turned up. But there was all these sort of moments of bickering between GP and Max and they were winning everything but if Max was like p3 in a session you'd hear GP say go around for a practice start and Max would say do I have to and GP would almost give him like a kind of dressing down it sounded like but they had that level of kind of like brotherly understanding didn't they where they could kind of bicker on air but they would totally get it and it was the same way that you can you can sort of bicker with your your best mates or your family that you can't with someone else over the comms.

6:25Jolyon Palmer:And it's difficult to replicate that.

6:27James Hinchcliffe:I think it was Helmut Marko referred to them as the old married couple, right? And we heard GP say things like, Max, you're being childish over a broadcasted radio message. I mean, that's taken a shot at it. Drivers can have sensitive egos. That's a big thing to say to a driver on a publicly broadcasted message. But again, Max never took it as an insult. He understood, I think, Like GP understood when he needed to kind of stand up and, let's say, recalibrate Max's attitude a little bit. And Max responded to it. And yeah, there's not a lot of people I don't think out there that can do that. I think there are three elements to this story, aren't there?

7:03One is, what does it mean for Max Verstappen? Then what does it mean for Red Bull? And what does it mean for McLaren? Let's deal with each of those three elements. We're talking about Verstappen now. this now reminds me of something Verstappen said in in Suzuka at the Japanese Grand Prix you know when he was saying I need I've got some life decisions to make he told us and I think he obviously knew that GP was off and let's go back to 2021 just after he'd won his first world title he was giving an interview in the British media and he said if GP goes, I go. That's what he said five years ago. So what does this all mean for Verstappen?

7:48Do we think this will just hasten his departure from Red Bull?

7:52Jolyon Palmer:That's exactly how I see it. I think we're already talking about Max probably leaving the team at some point. You've got Red Bull not being competitive with not the easiest route back to being competitive with where they're at when you add in all the personnel that have left. Max, for me, GP is such a linchpin of him. It sort of connects driver to team. And I see this being the break of the news, a sort of more in-depth understanding as to another reason that Max isn't particularly happy in the team. And I just don't, on many levels, I don't see him sticking around particularly long, probably beyond the end of this year unless they have a concrete plan in place and a good sign of progress.

8:41James Hinchcliffe:It's interesting. When I read the news, the very first thought that I had was almost the other way around. It was, man, what does GP know that we don't? Has Max maybe played his hand and shared with his work partner what he's doing? But then something hit me, and I'm I'm curious if you guys remember this. In Abu Dhabi last year, the end of the race, on the pit stand, after the checkered flag, Max came within two points of the greatest comeback in motorsports history. And GP was just head on the table. You could tell he was exhausted. He was emotionally exhausted from that battle. And I wonder if even back then he knew that, hey, this was our chance to do it one more time together.

9:31James Hinchcliffe:because you look at the scope of this deal. 2028, I remember when Hamilton announced he was leaving Mercedes before the start of the season. We're like, this is nuts. No one's ever started a season knowing they're leaving the team at the end of the year. We're two years away. So this is not a decision that was taken lightly. This is not a decision that came together quickly. These deals need to be ironed out. There's a lot of caveats and a lot of intricacies here. I think you're right. they did see it as certainly their last opportunity for a while. They both knew that the new Red Bull powertrain was coming in with the regulation changes as well.

10:10So I'm sure that's why Max was so happy to develop late into last year because he knew it was going to compromise the start of this year, but this year was compromised anyway. I mean, it's really interesting to sort of turn it on its head like that, Hinch. I hadn't sort of viewed it from the, does he know something about Max's future? I mean, both of them, ironically, have contracts until 2028, don't they? So are they going to leave early together? I don't know, but I'm with JP, certainly, that this is surely, if he was undecided before, this surely has to be the moment where Max goes, right, I need to look elsewhere.

10:49Jolyon Palmer:Well, his home has moved, hasn't it? I mean, the building's the same, but all the furnishings are gone, effectively, at Red Bull. It still turns up to work at Milton Keynes, but he says hello to just different people in all the different areas. Not only that, he's not fighting for the title. Not only that, he's not loving driving the cars. And you think, oh, is it still, I'm not here for the building. I'm here for the success and for at least the people that I'm working with to believe in them. And when they're both changing, yeah, I think it seems inevitable. This episode is sponsored by Saley.

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12:57part two of the chat is what does this mean for red bull gp is another name in a in quite a long list of names over the last 18 months that have left the team i feel that red bull is a team that needs to get recruiting some big names to just instill some confidence at Milton Keynes, if nothing else, that, you know, this isn't a team in transition going the wrong way. We're just rebuilding on our way back up.

13:26James Hinchcliffe:I think if you look at, you look at when Laurent Mechies came into this team, it was kind of struggling a little bit. There was, you know, obviously the issues that we know about and immediately the team's form turned around, right? And so he sort of was seen as, and not that he took it this way. I mean, he was very humble in his acknowledgement that any success was in the pipeline and he's just sort of managing the situation today. But he got to enjoy the fruits of the labor and the success in the moment. For me, this is a really big test of his ability to kind of pull this team back up. They have the wherewithal.

14:05James Hinchcliffe:They have the know-how. You try to build a team that is well over 1 ,000 people, not off the back of one or two individuals. But the problem is with this situation, it's four, five, six potentially high, high-ranking individuals. That's a big hole in your structure. and this is where it's going to be I think a defining moment of Laurent Mechie's tenure at this team what moves does he make you know how does he position the team to kind of get back to

14:35Jolyon Palmer:that former level of success it's tricky though isn't it because I think other people must look at this as a as a empire falling mustn't they this is a this is a great Formula One team the amount of the success that they've had the ruthlessness that they chased that success and the way that they could execute with, I would say, to the maximum of their potential across all the elements, the race prep, strategy, driving, generally reliability as well. But everyone is leaving. So when you actually look at it, we're talking GP, but this is almost the tip of the iceberg today where it's a big one. but when you look at all the other people that have left sort of around the well kind of following on from Christian Horner or at least from a few years ago even pre-Christian Horner but it's been a rocky time at Red Bull for a long time and I wondered if it would stabilize a little bit with Laurent now at the helm and the fallout from Christian Horner sort of settling down a little bit you obviously had Adrian Newey go and Jonathan Wheatley go early on but when you see more big names going, it's probably not that enticing for people to go and join them either.

15:45Jolyon Palmer:So you sort of see everyone heading one way and you're a big name designer, you're a big name race strategist, you're a big name whatever. You think, hang on, maybe I want to go and join the dream team over here.

15:57James Hinchcliffe:But I kind of see it the other way as well. I think it's a huge opportunity, right? For some opportunistic engineers, management style people that maybe feel like they've been overlooked or haven't gotten the promotion they wanted at a given team to join a squad. And this is where I think LeRaw has to be so particular about the recruiting. As you said, TC, he's got to go find these diamonds in the rough. He's got to go find the next GP. I don't think he's going to be able to attract a GP quality individual because of what you just said.

16:27Jolyon Palmer:But that's the problem, Hinch. We're talking he needs to go and find diamonds in the rough, whereas everyone else is just getting the diamonds. So it's easier to find diamonds that are not in the rough. so i i think it's a chance for for red bull to have the rebuild but i've been thinking that already for like a year um is of it is another person that goes there they will be opportunities for people there'll be probably i still believe there's a lot of great people working at red bull that may be getting promotions as well and getting reward for for their hard work because as we as we've already said they almost won the title and most of that core team from the end of last year is still there um the power trains have done a good job as well so if they can find you know replace these guys with with some new people to lead the next generation of red bull it'll be okay but just finding that the core team and putting them together is not easy i think you've got to promote from within because think of the lead time okay you go and find someone at ferrari someone at mercedes who you want you give them an offer that they can't turn down so they commit to you well hang on how long is their contract with their current team how long is the gardening leave going to be you're you're talking years up to three years before they start having an influence on a on a car that is actually racing on track so let's not forget that you know it's a team of 1200 people maybe the solution is to promote from within and they also have let's not forget racing balls they're promoting from within if there's someone in Italy at Faenza who they like the look of they can just come across I would imagine much more easily than if if they were at a Ferrari or a Mercedes so maybe maybe you've hit the nail on the head JP maybe they do have to promote from within if they're going to get a if they're going to turn this situation around quickly anyway I think it seems to be the the the obvious way that that they'll go at this stage also when you look at Adrian Newey going to Aston Martin you see the most legendary designer of all time and it takes him you know he's talking about he joined the project late so now the car is I know they're in all manner of issues but the car's not good either and that's with Adrian there he still needs time to bed in uh Jonathan Wheatley didn't adjust fully to life at Sauber and he's out again within a year so it's not easy to just get new people into new jobs big names you know they they still they might not gel and there's plenty of stories of key designers moving around the place big names that work somewhere they get approached for big money and it just doesn't work out in another team and they go somewhere somewhere else quick one if Verstappen were to leave Red Bull who would be top of your shopping list if you were Laurent Macchier's have you got carte blanche have we got all the money that we I guess they would if they lose Verstappen so all the pulling power of uh of uh what we're talking nine figure sum i think take money no object jp who are you going for oh i i for me if money no object probably charlotte claire i think he's been at ferrari a long time i think he's supremely talented i think he's shown that if ferrari can't show this year that they can be capable of winning a title which they might do yet I think he's someone that could be tempted away.

19:46Jolyon Palmer:Would he be tempted enough to go to Red Bull? We're talking, you know, real hypotheticals here. But I still think there's a title in him. And I think he might be tempted. What do you reckon, Hinge?

19:58James Hinchcliffe:Well, he was my first thought as well. But I have a second. So I'll throw that one out there instead. Piastri. Yeah. He's, you know, as much as I don't buy into the to the McLaren is Lando's team and favoritism and stuff, I never have to the same extent. He's not been there as long. The loyalty might not be as deep. He he joined that team when they weren't quite at the top of the pecking order and was help. You know, it was it was a part of helping them get back to the top. So I don't think the idea of going to a Red Bull in their current state would be terrifying. um maybe he relishes the idea of being in a team that does support a number one and number two driver format and if that could be something worked into his contract being the de facto number one at a red bull is that as good or better than being equal number ones out of mclaren in the long term could be an interesting one well i'd go for carlos science because if red bull are rebuilding as looks obvious at the moment i can't think of a better guy out there james vall said recently that Carlos would be a brilliant team principal because he sees the full picture the whole picture and I don't think Piastri does yet I don't think Leclerc does yet and I think Carlos is quick enough if the car is there to win a world championship as well so three different drivers there you go exciting times is it is it weird that none of us picked anyone in their in their development program, right?

21:30James Hinchcliffe:If you think about the rebuilding process of this team, right? And it does look like it's heading into that sort of a phase. When you look at, you know, you had Sebastian Vettel at Toro Rosso at the time, you had someone to step in to that team and eventually lead it to great success. On the back of him, you had Daniel Ricciardo, who was so successful and quick enough that kind of upset maybe Vettel a little bit and forced his hand early to leave. Then you had Verstappen to come in, he sort of, you know, was upsetting the Ricardo camp and was then the de facto leader. I don't know if that person's there.

22:06James Hinchcliffe:Hadjar's already at the team, right? So let's, let's, let's give that caveat, right? Because he's obviously young and very talented and was the next guy in line. But if Max were to leave and you've got Hadjar already there, we didn't say Lindblad, we didn't say Lawson. Is the Red Bull program still a little bit deficient in its driver lineup long term and it's in its development do you think i think it's just too young and i think to partner hajar with a lawson or a linblad i just think leaves them too inexperienced i think they'd have to import some experience to help bolster hajar if nothing else i i completely agree but it's just it's yeah in the previous iterations they've kind of always had the obvious next choice and and even last year they did two years ago they didn't and that's kind of led to a certain situation a few years back they did and that's why they brought in uh checko uh so they've had these little gaps and they seem to be in one right now in terms of driver development finally then the last bit of the puzzle what does this mean for mclaren well it's obviously very exciting

23:09Jolyon Palmer:what it means is uh gp is going to come in as as uh the head of the head of the race team at McLaren which is a role that Andrea Stella is currently occupying as well as being technically team principal so it will free up Andrea to overview things and it will be another key appointment for McLaren and as I've said they'll learn with GP's bank of knowledge all about all about Red Bull all about you know another bright engineer in the team to help get on top of things through each race weekend as it goes. Yeah, I think it's a huge coup for them to sign. And technically, it means Andrea can focus on the overview.

23:58James Hinchcliffe:Yeah, it's a big get for sure. And there are people hype in that organization that he's already worked with. So there'll be some familiarity there already. But what I really love about it is I just love the long-term thinking from McLaren. I know we mentioned this. 2028, in theory, is when he's coming. This is not the first person they've gone after that they've had to wait a fair amount of time before they were able to start. I love that this isn't deterring them from going after the people that they think are going to be the key parts of the structure that this team needs to be successful going forward.

24:30Jolyon Palmer:Yeah. And it's punchy, isn't it? From GP as well, who's had a great runner at Red Bull, 10 years plus, moving up through the ranks. But we're seeing a lot of race engineers becoming team principals case in point andrea stella who's who's at mclaren and i i do think gp is maybe looking at this as a chance to to well he's obviously going above race engineer level when he when he comes across move more into the into the upper echelons again his his experience will be invaluable and across the board you you've got aio komatsu uh has was a was a race engineer that that became a chief engineer, that became a team principal.

25:10Jolyon Palmer:A lot more of them coming. And why McLaren for Gian Piero Lambiassi? I remember last year he was being linked to Aston Martin, lots of money. They had the works Honda deal coming their way. What do you think it is about McLaren specifically that he will find so enticing?