Red Bull Reportedly Recruits Tom McCullough to Replace Lambiase

Red Bull is reportedly preparing to recruit Aston Martin's performance director, Tom McCullough, as its new head of race engineering. This move comes as a response to the confirmed departure of Gianpiero Lambiase, who is set to join McLaren in 2028.

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 news follows previous 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.

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According to his LinkedIn profile at the time, he became performance director for Aston Martin Performance Technologies. 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.

Lambiase's departure from Red Bull is one of the biggest personnel changes in recent years. It was announced on 9 April 2026 that 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.

Red Bull's decision to bring in McCullough shows their seriousness in maintaining team performance amid a major transition. McCullough is considered to have extensive experience and a deep understanding of top team dynamics, which is expected to bring new stability to the Red Bull garage.