Red Bull has unveiled a new structure for its Formula 1 team following the upcoming departure of sporting director Jonathan Wheatley to Audi F1, with an expanded role for Max Verstappen’s race engineer.
Last month, Audi announced it had poached Wheatley to be its new F1 team boss, a role he will take “no later than July 2025”.
He will continue with Red Bull until the end of 2024 before a notice period. In response to his departure, Red Bull has now revealed the new structure of its racing team from January 2025.
Wheatley will not be replaced directly – a logical decision when someone has been an effective team manager for so long and has accumulated increasing responsibilities over the years. Instead, there will be an internal redistribution of his responsibilities.
While it has been a disruptive year for Red Bull with high-profile departures from Wheatley and Adrian Newey, and rumours of internal dissension, the scale of the promotions underway shows that Red Bull has secured renewed commitment from other senior members of the racing team and factory, and is keen to reward that loyalty.
Gianpiero Lambiase will continue to serve as Verstappen’s race engineer, but will now have broader responsibilities as “Head of Racing”.
Lambiase has been a race engineer at Red Bull for nine years (first with Daniil Kvyat and then with Verstappen) and without Wheatley leaving and facilitating this opportunity, his future at Red Bull would have been uncertain.
In his expanded role, Lambiase will have overall responsibility for the racing, legacy F1 and car manufacturing teams, as well as the strategy and sporting regulations group.
Steve Knowles, currently Senior Race Strategy Engineer, will assume responsibility for regulatory matters with the FIA and will report directly to Lambiase as interim Sporting Director.
Wheatley notably lobbied FIA race director Michael Masi to restart the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix one lap before the chequered flag.
Senior engineer Rich Wolverson will be promoted to the role of race team operations manager and will also report directly to Lambiase. He will be supported by current chief engineer Phil Turner, who will be promoted to the role of race team factory operations manager.
