Red Bull finds Gianpiero Lambiase F1 replacement
Red Bull is reportedly preparing to recruit Aston Martin’s Tom McCullough as its new head of race engineering, replacing Gianpiero Lambiase, who is set to move to McLaren.
According to a report by German publication BILD, McCullough has been identified as the person to take over the management of Red Bull’s trackside engineering operations.
The report states, “McCullough would be responsible for all operational matters at the racetrack and would coordinate the work of the engineers during the grands prix.”
The potential move follows recent reports that the British engineer will leave his current position as performance director at Aston Martin at the end of the year.
McCullough has been with the Silverstone-based team for over 10 years, throughout its time as Force India, Racing Point and Aston Martin. During his time at the team, he worked in a number of trackside performance roles before he was moved away from the F1 project.
According to his LinkedIn profile at the time, he became performance director for Aston Martin Performance Technologies.
Tom McCullough, Performance Director, Aston Martin F1 Team, gives an interview
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Prior to his time at the Silverstone outfit, McCullough served as a data engineer at Williams before becoming a race engineer, working with drivers such as Nico Hulkenberg, Rubens Barrichello and Bruno Senna, and had a brief stint at Sauber as head of track engineering.
This comes after Max Verstappen’s long-time race engineer Lambiase announced he would be leaving his role at Red Bull. On 9 April 2026, it was confirmed Lambiase had signed with McLaren as its chief racing officer and that he would join the Woking outfit in 2028, if not before.
Lambiase started his F1 career as a data engineer for Jordan in 2005 before becoming a race engineer when the team transitioned to Force India. He joined Red Bull in 2015, initially serving as Daniil Kvyat’s race engineer before Verstappen joined in 2016. Lambiase was later promoted to head of racing in October 2024.
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