Lambiez, currently Red Bull’s head of race engineering, will become the third senior Red Bull person to join McLaren in recent years.
Rob Marshall joins as chief designer at the start of 2024, and former Red Bull head of race strategy Will Courtenay becomes McLaren’s sporting director in January this year.
Red Bull has also lost chief technical officer Adrian Newey and sporting director Jonathan Wheatley from the start of 2024. They both left before former team principal Christian Horner was fired in July 2025.
Lambiez will join a McLaren race-operations support structure that already includes Courtenay and his boss, racing director Randy Singh.
The plan is for Lambias’s new position to allow Stella more freedom to focus on the leadership aspects of her role.
Stella is already doing two jobs – as well as being the team principal, she is also effectively the technical director.
The team’s engineering structure consists of three technical directors Peter Prodromou, Mark Temple and Neil Holday – responsible for aerodynamics, performance and engineering – as well as Marshall reporting to Stella when it comes to car design.
Lambiase will fit in well by reducing the pressure on Stella in the racing and trackside part of the business.
McLaren insiders have denied reports that Lambiez’s recruitment is a precursor to Stella’s departure to join Ferrari.
Lambiasse is known for his close relationship with four-time world champion Verstappen, with whom he has worked since the Dutchman joined Red Bull for the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.
Verstappen said at the last race in Japan that he was considering his future in F1 as a result of not enjoying driving new cars.
