Zak Brown has spoken of how McLaren seized the opportunity to recruit \u201chuge talent\u201d Gianpiero Lambiase, with the CEO also reflecting on whether the possibility could arise for the switch from Red Bull to take place earlier than when Lambiase\u2019s contract expires in 2028.<\/p>\n
It was announced during the gap between races in April that Lambiase \u2013 who is currently Head of Racing at Red Bull<\/a> alongside acting as Max Verstappen<\/a>\u2019s race engineer \u2013 will join McLaren<\/a> as Chief Racing Officer<\/a> once he has left the Milton Keynes-based outfit.<\/p>\n Speaking to Sky Sports F1 during the Miami Grand Prix<\/a> weekend, Brown<\/a> was asked if he saw Lambiase\u2019s signing as another coup for McLaren in terms of attracting the best people to the team.<\/p>\n \u201cMy job as CEO is to get the best talent, to think long term, to have the most strength on the pit wall or at the factory in design, wherever the case may be,\u201d Brown explained.<\/p>\n \u201cAndrea [Stella]<\/a> has done a fantastic job, [as have] our technical team, and GP\u2019s a huge talent so when the opportunity presented itself to strengthen our racing team, that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re going to do, whether it\u2019s a racing driver or an engineer or strategist, whatever the case may be. So I\u2019m very happy he\u2019s going to be joining us.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown then faced questions on whether it might be possible for Lambiase to join sooner than originally set out, with his contract at Red Bull due to expire in 2028.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know how this game works,\u201d Brown responded. \u201cAt some point it\u2019ll be probably uncomfortable, having someone that you know is going to a rival team.<\/p>\n \u201cI know my general view is if someone wants to move on, you need to do it in a measured way, but if someone doesn\u2019t want to be in my team anymore, I\u2019ve never been one that feels like people steal people from each other. Drivers, sponsors \u2013 you lose them or they have interest in something else.<\/p>\n \u201c2028 is when his contract\u2019s through. We\u2019ll wait if that\u2019s what\u2019s necessary \u2013 if there\u2019s something to be done earlier then of course we\u2019d be interested, but I think right now we\u2019re all stuck into 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown acknowledges that switching between teams can result in the \u201cuncomfortable situation\u201d of staff at a certain stage no longer being included in certain information, to avoid the risk of anything sensitive being carried over to their next employer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Lewis [Hamilton]<\/a> went to Ferrari<\/a>, they announced it early \u2013 at some point Mercedes<\/a> starts understandably cutting off knowledge that he might have and that\u2019s just how the business works,\u201d Brown explained.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll see how it plays out \u2013 we\u2019ve got time, we know we\u2019re all settled for 2026, so we\u2019ll chat about it when the time\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n And with Lambiase having worked closely alongside Verstappen for many years, Brown was also asked if the move could open up the possibility of having the Dutchman at McLaren in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t be happier with our driver line-up,\u201d he stated. \u201cLando [Norris]<\/a> and Oscar [Piastri]<\/a> are not only two awesome guys, on the track, off the track, but as team mates, which is so much I think what\u2019s made McLaren successful here is the chemistry that we have in the garage, at the factory, with our pit wall, all throughout the racing team.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t be happier with what we have, and zero intention in changing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zak Brown has spoken of how McLaren seized the opportunity to recruit \u201chuge talent\u201d Gianpiero Lambiase, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-644918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}