Red Bull's surprise Lambiase claim and McLaren meeting explained

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown and Red Bull bosses Oliver Mintzlaff and Laurent Mekies met at the Miami Grand Prix over Red Bull's claim Gianpiero Lambiase is joining McLaren to be team principal.

Lambiase, who is Max Verstappen's race engineer alongside a broader remit as Red Bull's head of racing, has agreed to join McLaren in the role of 'chief racing officer'. 

When this was announced at the start of April, the two teams inevitably framed the timing of the move slightly differently.

Red Bull said Lambiase would leave "in 2028, when his current contract expires" while McLaren said it would be "no later than 2028", which reflected McLaren's optimism that, as with many personnel changes, a compromise might allow Lambiase to join sooner. 

When Lambiase's move was confirmed, it came after a leak to Dutch media. The two teams then worked together on their official announcements and each hosted media engagements before the end of F1's April gap in the schedule, in which there was no needle over the topic.

Then in Miami last weekend, Mekies surprised McLaren by telling Sky Sports F1: "GP had an extraordinary opportunity. You know, he is going to be a team principal there."

Brown brushed this off in his own Sky interview by saying "he knows something I don't, apparently" and reiterating his support of current team principal Andrea Stella – who, when Lambiase's move was first reported, got linked with a return to Ferrari.

Clear-the-air talks

Both McLaren and Red Bull had reason to be slightly upset with certain narratives that developed around the Lambiase news emerging.

For Red Bull, Lambiase's departure fit the 'brain drain' narrative of the last few years and seemed further evidence that it was struggling to keep hold of its most senior and influential personnel.

McLaren's own press release about Lambiase also referenced two other recruits from Red Bull – Rob Marshall and Will Courtenay – who have joined the team in recent years.

This perhaps drove Mekies to, as he saw it, set the record straight in Miami by emphasising that it was a case of Lambiase having too good an opportunity elsewhere that he could not get at Red Bull – where he would otherwise have been happy to stay.

And as Lambiase is not due to join McLaren until 2028, it is argued that whatever has been agreed and communicated now could change by the time he actually joins the team. 

However, McLaren and Stella have been absolutely adamant that this is not correct. Stella, like Brown, is on a long-term contract having been critical to its rise to winning both world championships last year and has no desire to leave. 

Their stance is that Lambiase's chief racing officer role will not change and he will take on duties that Stella currently holds alongside being team principal – duties Stella does not believe would be sustainable to juggle long-term.

Red Bull's Miami claim that Lambiase would go to McLaren as team principal led to Brown, Mekies and Red Bull parent company chief Mintzlaff discussing the matter on Sunday at the Miami GP. 

The Race understands that both sides consider the air has been cleared and want a respectful rivalry rather than a return to the animosity fostered between the two teams when Brown went head-to-head with Mekies' predecessor Christian Horner.  

Mekies said: "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 move on." 

McLaren's 'poisoned biscuits'

Stella actually addressed the initial speculation around Lambiase in an interview published on McLaren's own website in April. 

"Honestly, some of the recent rumours, including those regarding astronomical salaries and mythical pre-contracts, have made me smile," said Stella. 

"It almost seems as though the 'silly season', which usually begins before summer, has arrived early! 

"I'm quite used to this sort of thing by now and I take it with a smile. 

"It almost looks like some envious pastry chef has tried to spoil the preparation of a good dessert at the McLaren patisserie.

"However, we do know very well how to distinguish the good ingredients from the poisoned biscuits…"

'Not taking the poisoned biscuit' is an expression often-used by Stella to warn McLaren not to be tempted by a distraction from rivals. 

In this case it is the original Lambiase leak, which is believed to have come from outside McLaren and Red Bull Racing directly.

The implication is that it was done with the intention of destabilising both teams – and maybe even Ferrari given it brought that team into the discussion.

Stella worked at Ferrari for many years prior to joining McLaren in 2015 and has been tipped as a logical target for the team. 

New generation Red Bull

Whatever role Red Bull thinks he will take up elsewhere, Lambiase's exit will be a tangible loss for the team to deal with itself.

It was inevitably seen as a further blow for Red Bull given the exits over the last few years of Horner, Helmut Marko, Adrian Newey, Marshall, Courtenay and others. 

Mekies acknowledged this, saying "we don't want to be defensive about the fact that we lost some talents, it's a fact, and it's been there for three or four years". 

However, he and Mintzlaff are trying to steer the team in a new direction, with Red Bull's own internal restructuring and external recruits. 

"It's the highest priority in the team to make sure that we create the environment in order to retain, develop and attract the best talent in the pitlane," Mekies said.

"We feel we have the best talent already, department by department. And that starts with Ben [Hodgkinson] on the power unit side for his team and with Pierre [Wache] on the chassis side and his team. 

"When we can, we will always try to see how we can promote internally. We have created a number of talents over the last few years, and we are proud of that. We want to continue. 

"If and when we need to go and get a specific set of skills or experience from some of our dear competitors around the pitlane, we will do it. As we have done.

"That's how we look at things. We go and give the best chance to our talents. And if we need to go elsewhere to inject, we will do it happily."