{"id":598337,"date":"2026-04-10T17:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598337\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T17:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:51:13","slug":"the-key-figures-red-bull-has-lost-over-the-past-three-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598337\/","title":{"rendered":"The key figures Red Bull has lost over the past three years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite its historic period of dominance in Formula 1 between 2022 and 2023,\u00a0Red Bull<\/a> has since gradually seen its key figures leave, sometimes under murky circumstances. Here is a\u00a0 look back at all the major departures from the team over the past three years.<\/p>\n

Rob Marshall, chief engineer
\n \"Rob <\/p>\n

Photo by: Mark Sutton \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

The announcement of Rob Marshall\u2019s move to\u00a0McLaren<\/a> was made back in May 2023, ahead of the 2024 season. This was the first major departure from Red Bull in recent years, as he had spent 17 years with the Milton Keynes-based team. Having joined in 2006, he served alongside Adrian\u00a0Newey as chief designer until 2015, playing a key role in the team\u2019s successes in the early 2010s.<\/p>\n

He was subsequently promoted to chief engineer and played a part in the team\u2019s resurgence, while also becoming involved in other company projects. \u201cWe will miss his influence,\u201d Christian Horner said following the announcement of his departure to become chief technical officer and chief designer at the Woking-based team.<\/p>\n

An influence that many considered crucial to the recent successes of McLaren, as part of his new partnership with Peter Prodromou (who was Newey\u2019s number two), himself a former Red Bull team member.<\/p>\n

Lee Stevenson, chief mechanic
\n \"Lee <\/p>\n

Photo by: Dan Istitene \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

He may not hold as high a position as others on this list, but he is a familiar face to the public\u00a0: Lee Stevenson announced in March 2024 that he was leaving Red Bull, after 18 years with the team.<\/p>\n

Starting his career in F1 at Jordan as a mechanic, he joined Red Bull in 2006 and from there he rose through the ranks to become the chief mechanic on Daniil Kvyat\u2019s<\/a> car in 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In early 2016, when Verstappen replaced the Russian, the rapport between the two was excellent and he retained this role until 2020, when, at his request, he was promoted to the position of deputy chief mechanic, before being appointed chief mechanic in 2023.<\/p>\n

Although he subsequently left the Red Bull, he did not abandon his role: he became chief mechanic at the\u00a0Sauber team, before being promoted to team manager at Audi<\/a>\u00a0 in 2026.<\/p>\n

Adrian Newey, chief technical officer
\n \"Adrian <\/p>\n

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz<\/p>\n

Having already contributed to the world titles won by Williams<\/a> and McLaren in the 1990s, Newey chose to join Red Bull in 2006. It took him just three years to help the team become a title contender with the RB5, the car that laid the foundations for the Red Bull\u2019s first championship-winning line-up between 2010-13.<\/p>\n

He then fell victim, like the entire team, to the failed transition to the V6 turbo hybrid era, due to Renault\u2019s shortcomings and, at times, to his own chassis department and a lack of coordination. The rest of his career at Red Bull saw him take a slightly more backseat role, somewhat weary of the dominance of engines over aerodynamics, while participating in projects outside of F1.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it was not until the switch to Honda engines that\u00a0Newey regained the opportunity to participate in the design of title-fighting cars \u2013 with Pierre Wache as full technical director from 2018 onwards \u2013 achieving success between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n

However, although he had a contract extension with Red Bull in 2023, the Horner affair and the internal power struggle that came to light in early 2024 prompted him to leave the team in May of that year. Symbolically, the announcement of his departure \u2013 the timing of which was criticised by\u00a0Newey himself due to its coincidence with the 30th anniversary of Ayrton Senna\u2019s death \u2013 came at the very moment the RB20 was beginning to show signs of weakness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In early 2025 he joined Aston Martin<\/a> as managing technical partner, mainly focused on the team’s preparation for the new rules era the following year.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Wheatley, sporting director
\n \"Jonathan <\/p>\n

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

Although less prominent than Newey, Wheatley has nonetheless been a key figure in his team\u2019s successes. Arriving in 2006, after serving as chief mechanic at Benetton and then Renault, the Briton was initially team manager before becoming sporting director in 2014.<\/p>\n

In this role, which he held from the pitwall, he notably oversaw the well-oiled machine that Red Bull\u2019s pitstop team had become, while managing dealings between the team and the FIA.<\/p>\n

In 2024, aged 57, he wanted to take his career to the next level, but Christian Horner\u2019s presence as team principal made internal progression difficult. He therefore had to look beyond the Red Bull fold, and it was Sauber \u2013 which would become Audi in 2026 \u2013 that Wheatley decided to join.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, after just two rounds at the helm of the team under the four-ringed manufacturer\u2019s banner, Wheatley left and is now tipped to join Aston Martin.<\/p>\n

His departure from Red Bull had prompted a shake-up in the hierarchy\u00a0and a series of internal promotions<\/a> at the time, notably with a more significant and broader role being given to\u00a0Gianpiero Lambiase, Max Verstappen<\/a>\u2019s race engineer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will Courtenay, head of strategy
\n \"Will <\/p>\n

Photo by: Mark Thompson \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Having joined Jaguar back in 2003, Courtenay remained with the team despite its takeover by Red Bull. A strategy engineer and then analyst between 2005 and 2010, he became head of race strategy in June 2010, a role he held until the end of last year before joining McLaren.<\/p>\n

The announcement of his departure came shortly after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, with Courtenay\u00a0preparing to take up the role of sporting director at McLaren.<\/p>\n

However, unlike in the case of\u00a0Wheatley, who joined a team that was not in the same league as Red Bull, the Austrian outfit was not particularly keen to fast-track the process.\u00a0Courtenay was nevertheless allowed to join Woking at the start of 2026, despite a contract that ran until the middle of the year.<\/p>\n

Christian Horner, CEO and team principal
\n \"Christian <\/p>\n

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

On board from day one with the confidence and support of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, Horner was just 31 when he joined F1\u2019s ‘Piranha Club’ in 2005, alongside legends such as Jean Todt, Ron Dennis and Frank Williams.<\/p>\n

Despite his inexperience at this level, he quickly laid the foundations for his team\u2019s future successes by surrounding himself with a competent and dedicated team; the star signing of this period was, of course, Adrian\u00a0Newey, a designer already widely regarded as one of the best of his generation.<\/p>\n

The gamble paid off fairly quickly, as Red Bull became a force to be reckoned with by the late 2000s, navigating the regulatory changes introduced in 2009 with great skill. Between 2010 and 2013, the team and its driver Sebastian Vettel<\/a> swept up every title.<\/p>\n

Horner would then impose his management and communication style, while guiding his team\u2019s rise to the ranks of F1\u2019s superpowers. After a difficult period due to the switch to hybrid turbo engines \u2013 albeit one marked by sporadic successes \u2013 the Austrian manufacturer would bounce back by taking a new gamble: an alliance with Honda.<\/p>\n

The drivers\u2019 world title was regained in 2021, before the team dominated the 2022 and 2023 seasons. The latter year proved particularly impressive for Red Bull, which dominated F1 like never before with Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n

Yet it was immediately after this campaign that the dominant team built by Horner began to crack, with the outbreak of the scandal over alleged inappropriate behaviour towards a female employee. While he was cleared of wrongdoing and remained in his role after an internal investigations, tensions will rise within the team against a backdrop of a power struggle, whilst performance declines. Not enough to lose the drivers\u2019 title in 2024, but enough to permanently weaken Horner who had been at the helm of the team for over 20 years.<\/p>\n

His surprise departure, announced in early July 2025, was accompanied by that of two other senior figures at the team, far less prominent than other personalities but who were close to Horner: Oliver\u00a0Hughes, the group\u2019s director of marketing and commercial affairs, and Paul Smith, the group\u2019s communications director.<\/p>\n

Dr Helmut Marko,motorsport advisor
\n \"Helmut <\/p>\n

Photo by: Kym Illman \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Having always held the unusual position of \u2018advisor\u2019 responsible for\u00a0motorsport within the energy drink giant, Dr Helmut Marko has thus been one of the guiding figures at Red Bull<\/a> and behind the rise of the Austrian empire in the F1 paddock, alongside the other long-standing members mentioned above.<\/p>\n

Serving as both\u00a0Mateschitz\u2019s right-hand man and his insider at the team, he was given the full confidence and freedom required to simultaneously establish the team\u2019s junior programme, which notably enabled the progression of young drivers through the ranks to F1.<\/p>\n

His greatest achievement will undoubtedly be the career of Sebastian Vettel, the first Red Bull-backed world champion (2010-13), after had supported him in his rise through the junior ranks prior to his arrival at Toro Rosso. The case of Max Verstappen , also a four-time world champion with Red Bull (2021-24), is different because the Dutchman had already made a name for himself before joining the fold, which he only did thanks to Marko\u2019s guarantee of a full-time F1 seat from 2015 onwards.<\/p>\n

Beyond these two drivers, the system for identifying, training and promoting drivers to F1, established around the ownership of two teams in the championship\u00a0\u2013 Red Bull as the flagship team and\u00a0ToroRosso\/AlphaTauri\/Racing Bulls<\/a>\u00a0as the junior team\u00a0\u2013 has enabled a plethora of promising drivers to enter F1, some of whom are still in the championship despite having left the team (Carlos Sainz<\/a>,\u00a0Alexander Albon<\/a> and Pierre Gasly<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Marko\u2019s influence at Red Bull was not, however, limited to the junior programme, and he played a leading role as a manager, notably alongside Horner, in supporting the team\u2019s major successes. In recent years, he had been a key figure alongside Max Verstappen and his entourage in the internal power struggle,\u00a0to the extent that he was openly backed by the driver in early 2024 during the turmoil caused by the Horner affair and had his contract extended until 2026.<\/p>\n

Over the years, his management style and public statements have often sparked controversy, one of the most recent controversies being his conspiracy theory-laden remarks<\/a>\u00a0against\u00a0Kimi Antonelli<\/a>\u00a0after the Qatar Grand Prix, which triggered a wave of online harassment against the Italian and forced Marko\u00a0\u2013 a rare occurrence\u00a0\u2013 to backtrack.<\/p>\n

It was against the backdrop of Red Bull\u2019s confirmed decline \u2013 despite a last-ditch effort at the end of last season \u2013 that he claimed to have made the decision himself to leave the team after the 2025 finale. However, some sources at the time suggested it was a decision imposed on him, due both to the Antonelli affair and an unauthorised attempt to recruit Alex Dunne into the Red Bull fold.<\/p>\n

Gianpiero Lambiase, head of race engineering
\n \"Gianpiero <\/p>\n

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

After starting his career in 2005 at Jordan, spending 10 years with the team under its various names (Midland, Spyker, Force India), he joined Red Bull in 2015 as Daniil Kvyat<\/a>\u2019s race engineer. When Kvyat was demoted to Toro Rosso and replaced by Verstappen, Lambiase retained this role.<\/p>\n

His collaboration with the Dutchman would lead to an immediate success at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, remaining with Verstappen has he charged to his four world titles\u00a02021-24.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During his time at Red Bull, he gradually rose through the ranks internally, taking on the role of chief race engineer in 2022 before being promoted to the position of racing director in the wake of the reorganisation following Wheatley\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n

In early April 2026, while his future within the organisation had already been called into question due to links with other teams, it was announced that he would be leaving Red Bull at the end of his contract in late 2027 to join McLaren from 2028 in the role of chief racing officer, reporting to Andrea Stella.<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite its historic period of dominance in Formula 1 between 2022 and 2023,\u00a0Red Bull has since gradually seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,946,85,291856],"class_list":["post-598337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-the-key-figures-red-bull-has-lost-over-the-past-three-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}