Max Verstappen’s race engineer GianPiero Lambiase is to be promoted into an expanded role at Red Bull as part of a restructuring of the team’s trackside operations, Autosport can reveal.
In the wake of the news that sporting director Jonathan Wheatley will be leaving at the end of this season to take up the team principal position at Sauber, Red Bull has elected to revise its senior management structure.
Rather than appointing someone as a direct replacement for Wheatley, Red Bull has chosen to split his former responsibilities across several individuals to help the team better deal with the requirements of current Formula 1.
While there has been no official announcement, Red Bull’s staff were informed of the changes during a factory briefing on Wednesday morning.
The key change will be Verstappen’s long-time race engineer Lambiase stepping up to take a new position of Head of Racing.
While he will continue to engineer Verstappen, having had that role since 2016, he will now also be in charge of all of Red Bull’s racing activities – and oversee personnel who fall under his remit.
This will include former senior strategy engineer Stephen Knowles taking on the newly created role of Head of Sporting Regulations. He will be in charge of ensuring the team’s compliance with all of F1’s rules, as well as be the liaison point with motor racing’s governing body, the FIA.
Another change is senior engineer of car engineering Richard Wolverson taking on a new position as Head of Racing Operations.
Beyond the immediate trackside revisions, Red Bull’s head of freight operations Gerrard O’Reilly is to take full control of team logistics, which will help drive efficiencies that are critical for success in the cost cap era.
Speaking about the new structure, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said that the team wanted to make use of the opportunity to better position itself for the future.
“We are in the midst of a period of significant change and development at Oracle Red Bull Racing, and in light of the challenges to come, we have made the decision to alter the structure of the race team,” he said
“The appointments will serve to give us greater capacity across a number of crucial areas and ultimately will, I believe, make the team more competitive.
“For me, it is especially rewarding to have promoted people from within. We have a huge resource of exceptionally talented people at Oracle Red Bull Racing and I am delighted that we can give them the opportunity to shine in roles that were not previously open. It’s a step forward for the team as a whole.”
