Red Bull adds Gino Rosato amid key departures

Red Bull has confirmed the return of former Ferrari paddock veteran Gino Rosato to Formula 1 as a consultant, with the Canadian set to attend several Grands Prix this season as the team looks to reinforce itself during a period of major internal change.

Rosato is not arriving in a frontline technical role or as a team principal, but his experience runs deep. He first worked with Ferrari at the Canadian Grand Prix in 1991 and joined the Scuderia permanently in 1997, going on to spend more than a decade in logistics, on-track coordination, internal relationships and operational support. He left Maranello in 2023 during a wider restructuring that, according to the source material, also included departures such as Mattia Binotto, Inaki Rueda and Laurent Mekies.

That background made Rosato one of the paddock's most recognizable non-technical figures. He was a trusted presence during Ferrari's Michael Schumacher era and later around Kimi Raikkonen, whose move to Lotus also briefly took Rosato away from Ferrari before he returned in 2014 for another nine seasons. The summaries also describe him as the godfather of Robin, Raikkonen's first child.

His value to Red Bull goes beyond longevity. Rosato said on the "Pitstop" podcast that his relationship with Max Verstappen and Jos Verstappen remains close. "If I message Max even now, I get a reply within two minutes. Jos is the same," he said. Rosato added: "They do not judge people by money or interests. They do not play games. They are just genuinely good people."

That kind of connection arrives at a significant moment for Red Bull. Over the last two and a half years the team has lost a series of high-profile figures, including Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley, Will Courtenay and Christian Horner. The source material also says Gianpiero Lambiase is expected to leave at the end of 2027.

In that context, Rosato's appointment looks less like a symbolic hire than a practical attempt to add experience and stability around Verstappen. In a non-technical consulting role, Red Bull is bringing in a paddock operator with decades of institutional knowledge and a longstanding relationship with the driver at the center of its current era.