Max Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase has been promoted as part of a Red Bull Racing restructure in the face of Jonathan Wheatley’s exit.
Wheatley is Red Bull’s sporting director and has served the team since joining in 2006. But he will leave at the end of the current season, having been offered the opportunity to be team principal at Sauber, which will become the Audi works team from 2026.
To fill the void left by their long-serving stalwart, Red Bull have elected to promote from within. And rather than directly replacing Wheatley, several key figures will take on new roles with the Milton Keynes-based squad from January 2025.
That includes a new role for Lambiase, currently head of race engineering who works directly with Verstappen. He will become head of racing, which will see him take on responsibility for the car build, racing and strategy teams, reporting to technical director Pierre Wache.
Lambiase has been Verstappen’s race engineer since 2016, but the Dutchman will not need to strike up a new relationship with someone else. ‘GP’ will continue to work with Verstappen in his current role.
Under Lambiase will be senior strategy engineer Steve Knowles, who will become acting head of sporting. He will be responsible for the team’s input and response to regulatory matters under the new team structure, and head of freight operations Gerrard O’Reilly will be promoted to head of race team support and logistics.
Senior car engineer Rich Wolverson will become head of race team operations, responsible for managing the day-to-day workings of both the competitive racing squad and also the team’s heritage operations.
Jonathan Wheatley is leaving Red Bull Racing to become team principal at Audi
Red Bull chiefs are understood to be pleased that another swathe of senior figures have committed their futures to the team. Rivals have been keen to fan the flames amid talk of a staff exodus after Wheatley’s decision to leave followed the announcement of car design guru Adrian Newey’s exit.
As he was unveiled at Aston Martin last week, Newey said he had decided to leave Red Bull because he “needed a new challenge”. And Wheatley has, for some time, harboured ambitions of becoming a team principal and needed to leave to achieve that goal, with Christian Horner not planning to go anywhere any time soon.
Horner said: “It has been a long and successful relationship with Jonathan, over 18 years. His contribution to six world constructors’ titles and seven world drivers’ championship, first as team manager and latterly sporting director will forever be a marker in our team history.”
