RacingGianpiero Lambiase will join McLaren in 2028 as Chief Racing Officer, and the choice was set before the 2026 season, according to the reporting that surfaced this week. The move is not linked to Max Verstappen’s plans at Red Bull. It reads as a clear Woking power play: McLaren is stacking leadership around Andrea Stella while Red Bull loses a long-time pillar of its race team.
Journalist Jon Noble said Lambiase’s and Verstappen’s paths are “parallel but not interdependent,” Jon Noble, journalist, in reporting cited by the article’s account. The reporting adds that Lambiase decided to leave on his own reading of Red Bull’s outlook. The same piece points to Lambiase’s reported gloom after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last November, which deepened with the verdicts from winter testing. That sequence appears to have reinforced his commitment to a 2028 switch. The article frames this as a sign that the internal stability that once anchored Red Bull’s run is starting to fray.
McLaren has clarified how Lambiase fits. The team says he will not be team principal, he will report to Stella as Chief Racing Officer. McLaren’s stance, as described in the article, is that his remit strengthens the executive structure and race‑weekend operations by spreading responsibilities across strategy, technical work, and on‑track execution. The team argues this reflects how complex Formula 1 has become and how much detail modern races demand. McLaren CEO Zak Brown showed open enthusiasm about the move on social media, according to the article’s account.
Ferrari’s interest in Stella has swirled in parallel. German journalist Felix Gerny reports that Ferrari chairman John Elkann views Stella as someone who could lead a “new era,” Felix Gerny, German journalist, in reporting cited by the article. That view ties back to Stella’s history in Maranello. The background detailed in the article says he joined Ferrari in 2000 and worked alongside Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen, experience that shaped his reputation for technical depth and clear management.
McLaren has moved to shut down talk that Stella already has a preliminary agreement with Ferrari. The team denied that speculation and emphasized, in communications cited by the article, that Stella remains the long‑term center of its organization. Lambiase will report to him, not serve as a bridge to a leadership change. In short, the hire is about scale and specialization, not succession.
Taken together, the Lambiase switch underscores two threads. Red Bull loses a cornerstone engineer who chose a different project based on his own outlook. McLaren, under Stella and Brown, keeps building out a structure tailored to modern F1, one designed to turn preparation and execution into points when it matters most.