{"id":844230,"date":"2026-08-03T11:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844230\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T11:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:07:14","slug":"guenther-steiner-praises-red-bull-after-major-mercedes-f1-hire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844230\/","title":{"rendered":"Guenther Steiner praises Red Bull after major Mercedes F1 hire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Haas Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner has praised Red Bull’s recent appointment of Gwen Lagrue to head up its junior driver programme, suggesting the move is a big step in maintaining the pipeline established by Helmut Marko.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the departure of long-time motorsport adviser Marko at the end of the 2025 season, the future direction of the Red Bull junior driver programme had become a talking point within the paddock. But the Milton Keynes outfit recently confirmed it had lured Lagrue away from Mercedes<\/a>, with the Frenchman set to assume the role of director of the Red Bull junior programme in 2027.<\/p>\n

Lagrue spent over a decade with the Brackley outfit, establishing himself as one of F1’s leading talent developers. During his tenure with the Silver Arrows, he played an instrumental role in identifying the likes of George Russell<\/a> and current championship leader Kimi Antonelli.<\/p>\n

During an appearance on The Red Flags Podcast, Steiner endorsed the decision, commending Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies for successfully securing Lagrue.<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Steven Tee \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“I was quite surprised that he’s leaving Mercedes. They must have made him a very good offer because he’s very close to the guys [there],” Steiner said.<\/p>\n

“I think he’s [great at] spotting talent and knowing what’s going on in all the series. Gwen has been doing it longer than anybody else. Therefore, he has got that advantage, and he knows what he’s looking for. So absolutely, that was a very good hire by Laurent [Mekies] to get Gwen there for the future.”<\/p>\n

Several F1 drivers have risen through the ranks as part of the Red Bull junior programme, including four-time champions Max Verstappen<\/a> and Sebastian Vettel<\/a>, current Williams<\/a> drivers Carlos Sainz<\/a> and Alex Albon<\/a>, eight-time grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo<\/a>, current Alpine<\/a> driver Pierre Gasly<\/a> and Verstappen’s team-mate Isack Hadjar<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n

Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Haas Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner has praised Red Bull’s recent appointment of Gwen Lagrue to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,293983,27235,291612,1881,2190,82,4962],"class_list":["post-844230","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-guenther-steiner-praises-red-bull-after-major-mercedes-f1-hire","tag-hungaroring","tag-hungaroring-pirelli-test","tag-mercedes","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844230","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=844230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}