Mekies says Brown talks ended Lambiase role row

Laurent Mekies says Red Bull and McLaren have already drawn a line under their Miami Grand Prix weekend disagreement over Gianpiero Lambiase’s future role, after Zak Brown publicly rejected Mekies’ suggestion that Max Verstappen’s race engineer was heading to Woking as a team principal-style figure.

The flashpoint came after Mekies, Red Bull team principal, said in Miami that Lambiase had an "extraordinary opportunity" and was "going to be a team principal there." That did not match McLaren’s official announcement, which said Lambiase will join as chief racing officer, reporting to team principal Andrea Stella, no later than 2028.

Brown, McLaren Racing CEO, answered with a pointed joke when Mekies’ comments were put to him. "He knows something I don’t, apparently," Brown said, before making clear that Stella remains central to McLaren’s structure. "I’ve got a great one. I got the best one in pit lane, Andrea Stella. I couldn’t be happier with Andrea."

Brown framed Lambiase not as Stella’s successor, but as another major addition to strengthen McLaren’s race operation. He said it was his job "to get the best talent, to think long term, to have the most strength on pit wall or at the factory," and called Lambiase "a huge, huge talent."

Mekies then moved to stop the contradiction turning into a prolonged public feud. Speaking to media including RacingNews365, he said: "I talk very often with Zak and with my other colleagues. But certainly, none of us wanted to go into a ping pong about it, and we had a good chat about it, like we always do, and we moved on."

That private conversation matters because Lambiase’s departure is significant for both teams. For McLaren, it is another high-level hire in a championship-winning structure. For Red Bull, it is the loss of Verstappen’s long-time race engineer and another senior figure leaving a team that Mekies admitted has seen key personnel depart over the last three or four years.

Mekies did not try to deny that pressure. He said Red Bull did not want to be defensive about losing talent because "it’s a fact," but insisted the team has time to prepare. "In terms of replacing GP, we have a couple of years to think about it," he said.

His broader message was that Red Bull believes the exit is manageable if it keeps developing from within while staying open to outside recruitment. Mekies said the team’s highest priority is "to make sure that we create the environment in order to retain, develop and attract the best talent in the pit lane," and argued Red Bull still has top people "department by department," naming Ben Hodgkinson on the power unit side and Pierre Waché on the chassis side.

He added that Red Bull will continue to promote internally when possible, but will recruit externally for specific expertise if needed. In that sense, the Miami dispute quickly became less about semantics over Lambiase’s future title and more about two leading teams protecting their own structures as Red Bull prepares for a notable loss and McLaren adds another senior name to a title-winning operation.