Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies repeats his striking statements in Canada about the reason behind Gianpiero ‘GP’ Lambiase’s move to McLaren. Max Verstappen’s regular race engineer will leave Red Bull for the British team after 2027, to become McLaren’s new Chief Racing Officer on paper. According to Mekies, it doesn’t stop there for Lambiase: ‘As far as I know, GP is indeed going to McLaren to become team principal there’.
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Last March it became known that Gianpiero Lambiase will leave Red Bull. Max Verstappen’s regular race engineer will switch from the Austrian team to McLaren after 2027. Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies claimed during the race weekend in Miami that the Brit is moving to the papayas to succeed Andrea Stella as team principal. In turn, the Italian team principal would then move to Ferrari. According to McLaren CEO Zak Brown, however, all these rumors were complete nonsense.
Mekies and Brown even met briefly to clear the air, but in Canada the Frenchman again made striking comments about Lambiase’s move. “As far as I know, GP (Lambiase, ed.) is indeed going to McLaren to become team principal there,” Mekies said in the Friday press conference. “That’s also what I said at the time (in Miami, ed.). Of course, we had several conversations before he made his decision. Don’t ask me when it will happen, the timing is not my business either. I can only tell you what we talked about in our discussions.”
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‘Silly season’
The Frenchman made the statements about Lambiase while current McLaren team principal Stella sat next to him. That same Stella dodged Mekies’ claim. “We want to attract the best people in Formula 1,” said the Italian. “That someone like GP chooses McLaren says a lot about the credibility of this project. I am personally quite burdened in my role as team principal. That’s why I need a strong group of leaders around me. We don’t just want to be successful now, but also in the future. All other speculation brings us back to the silly season.”
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