Red Bull’s succession plan for a key racing role

Red Bull has mapped out the next step in one of its most important technical roles. The team has confirmed Tom McCullough as its new head of racing, with the appointment due to take effect at the start of the 2027 Formula 1 season. That timing makes this more than a routine staffing update: it is a deliberate succession plan for a job that sits close to the centre of Red Bull’s race operation.

McCullough arrives from Aston Martin, where he had been a long-time engineer, and Red Bull is positioning him as the replacement for Gianpiero Lambiase in the head of racing role. The move therefore represents a carefully managed handover at senior level rather than a sudden reshuffle. In practical terms, Red Bull is not just filling a vacancy; it is choosing who will help shape the team’s engineering direction for the next phase of its Formula 1 programme.

The wider context is Lambiase’s own future. The sources say he is McLaren-bound and will join the team in 2028 as chief racing officer, reporting into team principal Andrea Stella. For now, he remains in place at Red Bull and is still serving a dual role, combining those broader responsibilities with his work as Max Verstappen’s race engineer. That detail matters because it shows how central Lambiase remains to Red Bull’s day-to-day operation even as a long-term exit has already been set in motion.

That overlap helps explain why Red Bull has moved early. Bringing McCullough in for 2027 gives the team time to manage the transition before Lambiase’s departure becomes immediate. It also suggests Red Bull wants continuity in a role that is not simply administrative, but closely tied to how the team connects engineering, strategy and trackside execution. In a Formula 1 environment where small differences in structure can affect performance, a planned handover can be just as important as the identity of the replacement.