Red Bull appoint new Max Verstappen race engineer after Gianpiero Lambiase exit

Max Verstappen's new Red Bull race engineer is to be Tom Hart after a deal was reached to extract him from an agreement to join Williams, according to de Telegraaf. 

Verstappen and Red Bull have been looking for a replacement for Gianpiero Lambiase, who is to leave the team and join McLaren in a more senior position from the 2028 season. 

Hart, a long-time Red Bull engineer, has been Verstappen's performance engineer since January 2020 and has been part of the team, including Lambiase, who engineered Verstappen to his four straight world titles. 

Hart had agreed in late 2025 to join Williams as that team continues its rebuilding process, but it is understood that a deal has finally been reached between Red Bull chief Laurent Mekies and Williams' James Vowles to stand Hart down from his commitment to join and allow him to take up the position of race engineer to Verstappen. 

It is unclear as to when Lambiase will formally step down from his race engineering duties to Verstappen, although given he is also the head of race engineering for both Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, it is expected that he will be gradually eased out of key meetings and future plans ahead of the move to McLaren. 

The performance engineer to race engineer route is not uncommon, with Marcus Dudley previously serving in the former role to Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes under Peter Bonnington, with Dudley even standing in for Bonnington for Hamilton's 2019 Mexican GP victory. 

Dudley has now become a race engineer in his own right, to George Russell.