The voice in Verstappen’s ear is about to change
Gianpiero Lambiase is leaving for McLaren. Red Bull’s replacement was supposed to be on his way to Williams — until Laurent Mekies talked him out of it.
Gianpiero Lambiase — “GP” to everyone in the paddock — has been the one constant on Verstappen's radio since 2016, through all four world titles. According to Dutch outlet De Telegraaf, that partnership is ending: Lambiase is leaving Red Bull for a senior role at McLaren, where he's expected to start no later than 2028. Red Bull, unwilling to be caught out, has reportedly already lined up his successor.
The name isn't a surprise so much as a rescue. Tom Hart has been Verstappen's performance engineer since 2020, sitting one seat along from Lambiase for six years, and was reportedly already on his way out of Red Bull entirely — with a deal in place to join Williams as part of James Vowles' rebuild. Team principal Laurent Mekies is said to have intervened personally, unpicking the Williams agreement to keep Hart in-house as Lambiase's long-term replacement instead.
“We are trying to find the best people to replace him.”
The timeline is where it gets awkward for Verstappen in the short term. Hart isn't expected to take over full-time until 2027, but with Lambiase already likely to be excluded from certain engineering meetings ahead of an expected period of gardening leave, reports suggest Hart could be the voice on Verstappen's radio for selected race weekends before this season is even finished. That would mean the most successful driver-engineer partnership of the current era winding down mid-championship, not at a tidy end-of-year handover.
The timing invites a read that Red Bull probably wishes it didn't. Verstappen's own future beyond this season remains unresolved, McLaren links of his own refuse to go away, and now the engineer who has talked him through four titles is heading to the exact team he's been rumoured to be talking to. That's very likely coincidence — Lambiase's move has been in the works since April — but it's one more thread pulling at a partnership that already had enough of them, at a moment when Red Bull can least afford Verstappen to feel like anything at the team is in flux.
Hart at least isn't a stranger. Six years on the same side of the garage counts for something, and Red Bull will be hoping familiarity closes the gap Lambiase leaves faster than a genuinely new appointment could. Whether it's enough to keep Verstappen settled through a summer where his patience with the car itself is already being tested is a separate question — and arguably the more important one.