- Brown dismisses Red Bull’s claim that Lambiase will be next McLaren team principal.
- Stella hired Lambiase himself, undermining suggestions he is being pushed aside.
- In 2028, McLaren will hold 3 former Red Bull senior figures in leadership positions.
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown rejected Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies’ claim that Gianpiero Lambiase will become a team principal at McLaren.
Brown made his position clear at the Miami Grand Prix on Friday, saying Andrea Stella remains his team principal and is not going anywhere.
Mekies had told Sky Sports F1 that Lambiase, who has guided Max Verstappen through all four of his world championships, was “going to be a team principal” at McLaren.
Brown responded with a short, flat rebuttal:
“He knows something I don’t, apparently. I’ve got one, and I’ve got a great one. I’ve got the best one in pit lane, Andrea Stella.”
McLaren confirmed Lambiase’s appointment as chief racing officer in early April. He will join no later than 2028, when his Red Bull contract expires.
The Mekies spark
Mekies set off the latest round of speculation when he spoke to Sky Sports F1 on Friday in Miami.
His comments arrived without warning and landed heavily in a paddock already asking questions about McLaren’s leadership structure.
“GP had an extraordinary opportunity,” Mekies told Sky Sports F1. “You know, he is going to be a team principal there. It’s not something that I can do anything else than wishing him well.”
Brown, shown those remarks by reporters, did not take long to respond. He confirmed Stella’s position was secure and framed the Lambiase signing purely as a strengthening of McLaren’s racing operation.
Brown’s vision for McLaren’s structure
Brown told the media at a pre-race event at the McLaren Technology Centre that Stella currently holds what amounts to three separate jobs.
He is team principal, head of the racing operation and an effective technical director who binds together McLaren’s three-person technical leadership group.
“Andrea is kind of the glue that brings that together,” Brown said. “Asking them to do three jobs is a tall order.”
That technical group consists of Rob Marshall, who leads engineering and design, Peter Prodromou, who heads aerodynamics, and Mark Temple, who oversees performance.
Brown said Lambiase’s arrival will allow Stella to shed the racing operations burden and focus more clearly on his other responsibilities.
Brown also framed the signing as part of his wider approach as CEO.
“My job as CEO is to get the best talent to think long term to have the most strength on pit wall or at the factory,” he said.
“GP’s a huge, huge talent. So when the opportunity presented itself to strengthen our racing team, that’s exactly what we’re going to do, whether it’s a racing driver or an engineer or a strategist, whatever the case may be. So I’m very happy he’s going to be joining us.”
In a separate comment, he added that Lambiase’s age and experience made him someone who “can be here for a long time at McLaren and grow.”
The Ferrari rumour and Brown’s forceful denial
The Lambiase appointment also renewed speculation that Stella, who spent 15 years at Ferrari before joining McLaren in 2015, could return to Maranello. Brown dismissed the idea in direct terms.
“I can confirm that this is complete nonsense,” he told Sky Sports. “A big part of our sport is that everyone likes to destabilise teams, but that doesn’t work here.”
Brown went further and revealed a detail that goes against the narrative of Stella being sidelined. He said Stella himself drove the decision to bring Lambiase in. “Ultimately, it’s Andrea who hired him,” Brown said.
Stella has confirmed this publicly. He acknowledged that running both the team principal and chief racing officer roles at the same time was not sustainable, and described Lambiase’s arrival as a practical and necessary step.
McLaren’s Red Bull pipeline
The Lambiase signing is the third time McLaren has recruited a senior figure from Red Bull in recent years.
Rob Marshall, who spent 17 years at Red Bull as chief engineering officer, joined McLaren in January 2024. He has since been promoted to chief technical officer and chief designer.
His influence coincided with McLaren winning back-to-back constructors’ championships in 2024 and 2025.
Will Courtenay, Red Bull’s former head of strategy for 15 years, arrived at McLaren as sporting director in January 2026 after an early release from his Red Bull contract.
When Lambiase joins, McLaren will have three former senior Red Bull figures in key roles, alongside a team principal with 15 years of experience at Ferrari.
That is a great depth of experience drawn from the two most successful teams of the past two decades.
Whether Lambiase eventually succeeds Stella as team principal is a question Brown has declined to answer definitively.
His public line is that it is not the plan. But his acknowledgement that Lambiase is someone who can “grow” at McLaren gives the paddock enough room to keep asking the question.
