Verstappen’s engineer gets promotion as part of Red Bull restructuring

Max Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase will be promoted to a more senior role as part of Red Bull’s restructuring following Jonathan Wheatley’s departure after 2024.

Needing to replace Wheatley, the team has opted to split his duties, with Verstappen’s long-time engineer Lambiase set for a second promotion after already serving as head of race engineering along with his normal duties with the three-time world champion.

Lambiase is set to become head of racing, with this new role taking overall responsibility for the race, heritage and car build teams, and head up Red Bull’s thinking for the strategy group and on the sporting regulations. He will continue to engineer Verstappen.

But will he be split too thin?

He will report into technical director Pierre Wache, with current senior strategy engineer Steve Knowles becoming acting head of sporting – focusing on regulatory matters, and who in turn, is one figure who will be reporting into Lambiase.

Additionally, Rich Wolverson will have his role expanded to head of race team operations from the current senior engineer – car engineering and becomes responsible for the day-to-day operations of the race and heritage teams.

Like Knowles, he will report into Lambiase, as will new head of race team support and logistics Gerrard O’Riley – the current head of freight operations.

Chief mechanic Phil Turner has also been promoted to race team factory operations manager, reporting to Wolverson.