Andrea Stella out? Red Bull F1 boss 'confirms' team principal role at McLaren

Stella, LAmbiase, socials — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Andrea Stella out? Red Bull F1 boss 'confirms' team principal role at McLaren

Laurent Mekies spoke about the possible switch at the Miami Grand Prix

Chris Deeley

Friday 1 May 2026 21:26

Nobody at McLaren has been entirely forthcoming about what Gianpiero Lambiase's going to be doing when he joins the team...but his current boss Laurent Mekies might've spilled the beans.

The papaya team have been steadfast in insisting that Max Verstappen's long-time race engineer wasn't poached in order to replace Andrea Stella as their team principal when he signed earlier this year – but Mekies appeared to intimate otherwise at the Miami Grand Prix.

The Red Bull boss said Lambiase 'is going to be a team principal there', calling it an 'extraordinary opportunity' – which would obviously bring Stella's future in the role into question.

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McLaren CEO Zak Brown has previously warned against trusting what rival teams put out about the situation, telling Sky Sports last month: "Can I confirm [rumours of Stella moving to Ferrari] is total nonsense? I can confirm that’s total nonsense, and a team or two stirring it. A great part of our sport is everyone likes to maybe destabilise teams."

Mekies 'reveals' Lambiase role at McLaren

Stirring the pot, then, or actually revealing legitimate information? Mekies was discussing Lambiase's departure on air at the Miami Grand Prix when he said: “We don’t want to be defensive about it, you’re right we have lost quite a few key people in the last four or five years, it is very true.

“We take it very seriously and everything we do is to try to make sure we have the best environment to try to attract, develop and to retain our people.

“I’m confident that it’s an area that we will succeed, is it going to be a linear way to it with nobody leaving anymore? No, GP had an extraordinary opportunity, he’s going to be a team principal there, it’s not something that I can do anything else but wish him well.

“This team is creating talents, we are very proud to as often as we can rely on internal promotions and if we have a need to go and look for a specific set of skills or experience in the pit lane, we go and do it and we happily do it.”

While it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Lambiase could be a team principal hire – Aston Martin, after all, approached him for exactly that – it would be an unexpectedly destabilising move for the reigning champions to overtly bring in a replacement for Stella, and doubly so a replacement who might not be able to join the team for nearly two years.

It would be equally odd, as Brown pointed out last month, for Stella to recruit his own replacement. File this one under 'maybe spurious?'

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F1 Red Bull McLaren Gianpiero Lambiase Laurent Mekies Andrea Stella