Former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has weighed in on the shock news that Gianpiero Lambiase will leave Red Bull.<\/p>\n
The Milton Keynes-based squad announced last week that Max Verstappen’s long-time race engineer will depart his role with the team in 2028.<\/p>\n
It was soon after announced by McLaren that it had acquired the services of Lambiase, who will join the team as chief racing officer.<\/p>\n
Speaking to AS Colombia, Montoya suggested Red Bull could have easily matched McLaren’s offer to Lambiase.<\/p>\n
“It is interesting, though, because he will now have a more important role than he had or could have had at Red Bull,\u201d Montoya said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s also a role that Red Bull could have known he could have gotten elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know for sure, but when I look at all he has achieved, I personally think it is a role that Red Bull certainly could have given him as well.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lambiase’s exit has once again thrown Verstappen’s future into uncertainty, with the Briton long noted as one of his closest Red Bull allies.<\/p>\n
The team is currently struggling with its performance, having endured a lacklustre opening three rounds.<\/p>\n
Should improvements fail to be found, Montoya has predicted Verstappen will seek the exit door.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at Mercedes. Kimi Antonelli has won the last two races, but George Russell is suddenly really struggling,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd team boss Toto Wolff has always said very clearly that he wants Max in his team. This could well be the perfect opportunity for Verstappen.<\/p>\n
“Red Bull is on the slower side. If they stay that way all year, Max will definitely be looking for a way out, for a way to leave as soon as possible.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has weighed in on the shock news that Gianpiero Lambiase will leave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-603930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","11":"tag-f1-calendar","12":"tag-f1-live","13":"tag-f1-results","14":"tag-f1-standings","15":"tag-ferrari","16":"tag-formula-1","17":"tag-lewis-hamilton","18":"tag-max-verstappen","19":"tag-motor","20":"tag-motor-sports","21":"tag-motorsport","22":"tag-motosport","23":"tag-motosports","24":"tag-racing","25":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603930","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=603930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}