Max Verstappen has revealed that he encouraged his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to accept an offer to join Formula 1 rival McLaren.<\/p>\n
Last week the unexpected announcement was made that Lambiase, Verstappen<\/a>\u2019s long-serving race engineer and Red Bull\u2019s head of racing, would be joining McLaren from 2028 <\/a>when his current contract expires.<\/p>\n Lambiase is the latest high-profile figure to depart Red Bull and join McLaren, following former chief designer Rob Marshall and ex-head of strategy Will Courtenay. Red Bull has also lost legendary designer Adrian Newey and its former sporting director Jonathan Wheatley to rivals in recent years.<\/p>\n The shock news of Lambiase\u2019s exit raised questions about Verstappen\u2019s future, with the four-time world champion already suggesting he could walk away from F1 at the end of the season because of his dissatisfaction with the new rules.<\/p>\n Speaking at a Viaplay event in Amsterdam on Thursday evening, Verstappen said Lambiase sought his council about McLaren\u2019s offer – which is reported to include a huge salary increase – before making his final decision.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me what kind of offer he\u2019d received. I said: \u2018You\u2019d be daft not to take it,\u2019\u201d Verstappen told Viaplay.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve already achieved everything together and then he gets such a fantastic offer, especially with his family in mind and the security it would bring him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe asked me for my approval, so to speak, and I told him he absolutely had to go for it. He really wanted to hear that from me.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen\u2019s comments come after his father, Jos, revealed that he and his son knew in advance about Lambiase\u2019s planned Red Bull exit and supported the decision.<\/p>\n “We knew for a while, and we also knew when it was going to happen,” Verstappen Sr told RaceXpress.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n “We have another year and a half to two years to work with him. It’s a huge opportunity for him, so we understand. We also told him to do it and grab it with both hands. Beyond that, it’s up to Red Bull to replace him. We will see.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen Sr also suggested that his son will continue racing in F1 despite conceding \u201cthings have changed\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI think things have changed,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially after four championships, you\u2019ve achieved a lot together. The final decision is up to Max, but I think he\u2019ll just carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has revealed that he encouraged his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase to accept an offer to join…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,825,806,805,803,804,918,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-612790","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-f1","11":"tag-max-verstappen","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-red-bull","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612790","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=612790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}