Verstappen says he told Lambiase he’d be ‘stupid’ not to take McLaren offer

Max Verstappen told his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase he would be stupid not to take the offer he received from McLaren, after he asked the Dutchman for his thoughts on the move.

Lambiase – or "GP" as he is widely known – will join McLaren no later than the start of 2028 once his Red Bull contract runs out, taking on the role of chief racing officer. That is set to bring his highly successful partnership with Verstappen to an end, having race-engineered the Dutchman to all four of his world titles so far, but Verstappen says the move came with his blessing.

“He told me what kind of offer he received,” Verstappen (pictured above with Lambiase) said during an event organized by Viaplay in Amsterdam. “I said, ‘You would be stupid not to do that.’ We have already achieved everything together. And then he gets such a great offer, also with his family in mind and the security it would give him.

“He asked me for a sort of permission and I said that he absolutely had to do it. He really wanted to hear that from me.”

Lambiase’s departure is the latest in a number of changes at Red Bull, with the team announcing on Friday it will bring in Racing Bulls deputy technical director Andrea Landi to fill the role of head of performance from the start of July. That position will report to former head of performance engineering Ben Waterhouse, who has been promoted into an expanded role as chief performance and design engineer, reporting directly to technical director Pierre Wache.

“This evolution strengthens integration between these areas and will accelerate the development of competitive, high-performing solutions,” a Red Bull team statement read. “These changes support the team’s long-term technical ambitions and reflect its continued focus on developing internal talent while attracting leading expertise from across the sport.”