{"id":613189,"date":"2026-04-17T15:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/613189\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:44:08","slug":"i-can-certainly-see-that-happening-ralf-schumacher-sparks-talk-of-a-spectacular-driver-swap-in-formula-1-involving-max-verstappen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/613189\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I can certainly see that happening&#8221;: Ralf Schumacher sparks talk of a spectacular driver swap in Formula 1 involving Max Verstappen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cMax Verstappen has said that if Lambiase leaves, he\u2019ll leave too. So I can certainly imagine Oscar Piastri joining Red Bull and Max then moving to McLaren, if he continues racing at all,\u201d said Schumacher.<\/p>\n<p>Last week it became clear that Verstappen\u2019s race engineer and close confidant, Lambiase, will leave Red Bull when his 2028 contract expires and will then join McLaren.<\/p>\n<p>Lambiase\u2019s exit means Verstappen will have lost three key allies in short order: aerodynamics chief Adrian Newey, who switched to Aston Martin, and motorsport adviser Dr Helmut Marko, who retired from Formula 1. The Dutchman and Lambiase have collaborated since 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The team currently sits a non-threatening fourth in the constructors\u2019 standings, behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren. Verstappen\u2019s best finish so far is sixth, achieved in the season-opener in Melbourne, leaving him ninth in the drivers\u2019 championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMax Verstappen has said that if Lambiase leaves, he\u2019ll leave too. So I can certainly imagine Oscar Piastri&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-613189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613189","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=613189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}