McLaren is making efforts to bring Gianpiero Lambiase, the current Red Bull engineer in Formula 1, earlier than planned.
In April 2026, the Woking team announced the signing of GP, who has worked directly with Max Verstappen for many years in the Austrian team. Originally, the move is scheduled to happen in 2028, but the papaya team now wants to bring him earlier.
For this to happen, Red Bull needs to reach an agreement with McLaren. Discussions between both parties have taken place in recent months and continued during the Spanish GP weekend.
Lambiase and Zak Brown, McLaren’s CEO, were seen in a public meeting outside a café located in the Madrid paddock on the morning of last Saturday, the 12th.
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According to information from De Telegraaf, Gianpiero will at least finish the current Formula 1 season with Red Bull, meaning McLaren has to wait at least until 2027 for the engineer to join the team.
In fact, the multi-champion Austrian team is already preparing for this eventuality, with Tom Hart acting as Verstappen’s race engineer during this year’s free practice sessions. This is expected to continue at the next race on the calendar, the Azerbaijan GP.
Erik van Haren, a Dutch journalist close to those involved with Verstappen and who usually brings information about the four-time world champion, reported that Hart will take over alongside Max for three full races: Austin, São Paulo, and Las Vegas.
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