We are just a few weeks away from the kick-off of the 2025 season of Formula 1, and the teams are refining their preparation… and their organization. Faced with the departures of Jonathan Wheatley (former sporting director) at Sauber-Audi and the arrival of Liam Lawson in the second seat, Red Bull had to reorganize internally at the level of on-track operations.
For his arrival at the Austrian team, the New Zealander will now work with a new race engineer, who is none other than Richard Wood, former performance engineer for Sergio Pérez and who, on an ad hoc basis, was also the Mexican's race engineer in 2024 when Hugh Bird was on paternity leave. The British engineer will therefore be the young Kiwi's right-hand man for his debut at Red Bull and will be the one who will occupy his radio at all the Grands Prix.
Pierre Hamelin, who was Liam Lawson's race engineer at Racing Bulls, remains with the Italian outfit and is expected to partner Isack Hadjar in 2025. Hugh Bird, meanwhile, will no longer be on the Red Bull pit wall. However, the Briton has been given a new role in Milton Keynes, as team leader of the suspension department.
Lambiase promoted to Red Bull
In addition to the appointment of Liam Lawson's race engineer, Red Bull has also confirmed the new role of Gianpiero Lambiase, who has been promoted internally. While he will still be the race engineer for Max Verstappen In 2025, "GP" moves up a rank and takes on new responsibilities: the Italian-British engineer will be the "competition manager" of the Austrian team this season, and will now have to take care of the management of the entire team, the management of race operations and also some operations related to strategy.
While Jonathan Wheatley's role as sporting director is not being replaced directly, his previous duties will be shared across different positions. Red Bull has promoted Steve Knowles – previously a strategy engineer – to the role of "sporting director" of the team. His role will include communicating with race management during Grand Prix weekends and managing relations with the governing bodies.
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