Verstappen’s Race Engineer Heads to McLaren, Raising Questions About the Dutchman’s Future

Max Verstappen’s decade-long partnership with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase is set to end, after it emerged that “GP” has agreed to join McLaren when his Red Bull contract expires at the end of 2027.



Red Bull confirmed the move in an official statement, acknowledging the significance of the loss with careful diplomatic language. “Oracle Red Bull Racing confirms that Gianpiero Lambiase will leave the team in 2028, when his current contract expires. ‘GP’ is a valued member of the team, which he joined in 2015.”



McLaren wasted no time framing the hire as a structural reinforcement rather than a coup, stating that Lambiase will join as Chief Racing Officer and that the role “already exists within the team’s structure,” with his arrival intended to free up team principal Andrea Stella for broader leadership responsibilities.



On paper, Lambiase is not leaving until 2028, which means Red Bull have time to adjust and Verstappen retains his trusted engineer on the pit wall for now. But the symbolism of the announcement is hard to ignore, arriving as it does during a season where the four-time champion has openly questioned whether he wants to continue in Formula 1 at all.



Verstappen has previously said in interviews that he would stop racing in Formula 1 once Lambiase left. Whether that was a throwaway remark or a genuine statement of intent is now something the entire paddock is quietly trying to work out.



The pair have been together since 2016, navigating everything from early Red Bull turbulence to four consecutive world championships. Former team boss Christian Horner once famously described them as “an old married couple,” which captures the combative closeness that has defined the partnership over the years.



For McLaren, this is the latest in a string of hires from Red Bull that reads less like coincidence and more like a deliberate dismantling of the infrastructure that once made Milton Keynes the envy of the paddock. Rob Marshall joined as Technical Director in 2024, Will Courtenay followed as Sporting Director at the start of 2026, and now Lambiase completes what amounts to a transfer of Red Bull’s intellectual architecture to Woking.



What makes the story genuinely complicated is Verstappen’s own position within it. He sits ninth in the 2026 standings with just 12 points after three races, driving a car he has described as anti-racing and comparable to “Mario Kart” in a simulator context. His frustration with the current regulations is well documented, and this latest development adds another variable to an already unsettled picture.



Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has said publicly that delivering a competitive car will restore Verstappen’s enthusiasm. But time is not unlimited, and with performance clauses widely understood to exist in the Dutchman’s contract through 2028, the conditions for an early exit may already be forming. Whether Lambiase’s departure is a trigger or just another data point in a longer calculation remains to be seen.
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