Red Bull are very worried about ‘major’ Max Verstappen blow if Gianpiero Lambiase joins Aston Martin

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Alarm bells are now ringing at Red Bull as 2025 draws to a close after Aston Martin reportedly opened talks with Max Verstappen’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase.

Lambiase has worked with Verstappen as his race engineer ever since the latter moved up to the top Red Bull team from Toro Rosso in 2016. Red Bull also promoted Lambiase to the role of head of racing from the 2025 F1 season, after Jonathan Wheatley joined Audi via Sauber.

British-Italian engineer Lambiase has worked for Red Bull since the end of 2014, and initially worked as Daniil Kvyat’s race engineer from 2015 until Verstappen moved to Milton Keynes. The 45-year-old built an extremely close relationship with Verstappen over the past decade.

But Lambiase’s future at Red Bull has seemed uncertain since the end of the 2025 season. It is said that Lambiase has chosen to step down as Verstappen’s F1 race engineer for personal reasons, which saw him miss the Austrian and Belgian rounds where Simon Rennie stood in.

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Red Bull fear the effects Gianpiero Lambiase leaving could have on Max Verstappen

It is also now said that Aston Martin have opened talks with Lambiase about a management-level role, which might see him become their latest CEO or take over the team principal role that managing technical partner Adrian Newey is primed to take over from the start of 2026.

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Lambiase has yet to decide whether he will accept Aston Martin’s offer, but F1-Insider notes that Red Bull are more than a little bit ‘worried’ that he will go. Red Bull also fear Lambiase’s exit could hand Verstappen a ‘major blow’, as the Dutchman would lose his right-hand man.

Red Bull fear the potential mental strain that Lambiase joining Aston Martin might have on Verstappen in 2026, as the 28-year-old relies heavily on the engineer. Lambiase also knows when to step in to calm Verstappen down, motivate the Dutchman and to tell him to listen.

Simon Rennie replaced Gianpiero Lambiase as Max Verstappen’s race engineer twice in 2025

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Red Bull fear the trust that Verstappen has in Lambiase is ‘irreplicable’, and it would come at a time when Formula 1 is introducing its biggest overhaul of the regulations so far. The 2026 F1 engine regulations will highlight the importance of the driver-engineer relationship, too.

Due to the increase in electrical power from a 20/80 split to 50/50 in 2026, drivers will need their engineers to keep them informed of when to save or deploy their energy. If Verstappen does not have a race engineer he trusts wholeheartedly, it could put him at a disadvantage.

Rennie, who currently serves as Red Bull’s group leader of simulation engineering, stepped in for the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix and Belgian GP owing to Lambiase’s personal situation. Verstappen won the F1 Sprint at Spa and earned P4 during the Belgian Grand Prix this July.

Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli took Verstappen out on Lap 1 of the Austrian Grand Prix in June. It was the first time that Rennie served as a race engineer since 2020 with Alex Albon, and previously with Mark Webber in 2013 and also Daniel Ricciardo from 2014-2019.