Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies looks back on the conversation with McLaren CEO Zak Brown during the Miami GP. The reason for Brown’s visit to Red Bull was the comments from both teams about Gianpiero Lambiase’s role after 2027 with the papayas. The French team principal reveals that after the conversation with the American CEO, the ‘ping-ponging with McLaren about Lambiase’s role’ is over.
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In early April, it became known that Gianpiero Lambiase will move to McLaren after 2027. This marks the end of the era of Max Verstappen’s fixed race engineer at Red Bull. As soon as the news was made public, the British engineer was immediately labeled as the successor to team principal Andrea Stella, while that same Stella was said to have had an offer from Ferrari.
However, McLaren soon declared that ‘Lambiase will take on the role of Chief Racing Officer, reporting to team principal Andrea Stella’. Stella himself could also laugh about the rumors regarding his own future. Yet Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies caused surprise throughout the paddock when he told Sky Sports in Miami: “GP (Lambiase, ed.) has a great opportunity at McLaren. He will become team principal there.”
‘Endless ping-pong match’
McLaren CEO Zak Brown then responded to Mekies’ comments. “Then he knows more than I do,” the American laughed. “I already have a great team principal. The best in the entire pit lane, Andrea Stella. I couldn’t be happier with Andrea.” Brown then decided to visit Red Bull to discuss the comments in the press together with Mekies and Red Bull top executive Oliver Mintzlaff.
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“First of all, we have very frequent contact with Zak and my other colleagues,” Mekies explained afterwards about the conversation with Brown. “So it’s not about this or that, but none of us wanted to start an endless discussion about it. A kind of endless ping-pong match back and forth. We talked about it calmly as always and now we move on.”
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