This F1 empire continues to crumble. Plus: Toto Wolff’s soft side

Max Verstappen’s race engineer — GianPiero Lambiase, also Red Bull’s head of racing — is leaving the team to join McLaren. Clive Mason / Getty Images Share full articlePrime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason. Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today we’re considering the fall, and re-rise, of two modern Formula 1 superteams: Red Bull and Mercedes. I’m Alex, and Madeline Coleman will be along later. F1 news very much slows down when there are no races, as is currently the case with this unexpected spring break gap in the calendar. But things went into overdrive when Europe woke up yesterday to the news that Max Verstappen’s race engineer — GianPiero Lambiase, also Red Bull’s head of racing — is leaving the team to join McLaren. As Luke Smith explained, there’s a bit of contractual wrangling still to come, as McLaren hopes Lambiase can join as its chief racing officer before 2028, when his current Red Bull deal expires. But Red Bull is so far adamant he will continue in post until that point. (It’s similar to how Will Courtenay had to work the full term of his last Red Bull contract as its old race strategy chief, before joining McLaren as its sporting director for 2026.) Courtenay and Lambiase will soon link up with ex-Red Bull chief designer Rob Marshall, who has been McLaren’s chief technical officer and chief designer since 2024. That’s already quite the list of senior Red Bull figures to have departed since its all-conquering 2023 season, when the team won 21 out of 22 races and Verstappen swept the third of his four successive world titles. Then, when you add the rest, the list gets longer and the names get bigger. There can be no doubt that the Horner scandal played a major role in this exodus of names — including his own. But, really, the crumbling of the Red Bull F1 empire began when Red Bull GmbH co-founder, Dietrich Mateschitz, died in late 2022. Mateschitz created a near-perfect environment for a modern F1 team to first flourish, then reach superteam status: enough cash to wield cutting-edge resources, but an absence of the corporate meddling that has held back other teams in a similar position (particularly Ferrari and Renault/Alpine). That precious autonomy — which Toto Wolff has at Mercedes’ F1 team (more on this later) — ended when Mateschitz died and his successors gained power at the overall Red Bull corporation. This still has Verstappen as the jewel in its giant sports marketing crown. But for how much longer? He’s already contemplating leaving F1, as a result of the new styles of racing and driving required by the new cars. Now, his right-hand-man will soon be gone. Verstappen has known of Lambiase’s impending exit for a while, and it could play a big role in whether Verstappen stays in F1 after 2026. Not that Lambiase had a heads up about the Dutchman’s choice.  But a FAR bigger factor in that decision will be what F1 does about addressing the driver complaints over the new cars, where Verstappen has very much led the charge. And the meetings that could decide his next career step have already begun. Over to Madeline to explain this critical process. Yesterday, the first of four meetings took place to discuss possible changes to the 2026 regulations, and how the cars perform from now on. This initial discussion featured the FIA and technical experts from the engine manufacturers and teams. In a statement, the FIA described the meeting as having “covered a raft of topics as part of the natural evolution of the 2026 F1 technical and sporting regulations” and that the dialogue was “constructive.” The statement continued: “It was generally agreed that although the events to date have provided exciting racing, there was a commitment to making tweaks to some aspects of the regulations in the area of energy management.” Over the first three 2026 events, many drivers criticized the regulations and the ways the cars need to be driven as a result of their restrictions and instructions. Even Ollie Bearman’s high-speed wreck at Suzuka seemed inevitable to some in the paddock, given how the new engine systems mean there are often big, and sudden, closing speed differences between cars. The specifics of yesterday’s meeting were not revealed by the FIA, but three more meetings are scheduled ahead of May’s Miami Grand Prix. Discussions concerning the sporting regulations will take place on April 15, and the next tech-focused meeting will be the following day. The FIA statement said that come April 20, “a high-level meeting” between representatives of all the stakeholders will be held, and “it is anticipated that preferred options jointly proposed by the technical teams will be considered and a consensus sought on the way forward.” Wolff recently spoke to Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports, on his management style and thoughts on leadership, and life, in general. You can read the full interview here, but four things really stood out to me. The first is this that Wolff — the Austrian has led the Mercedes team since 2013 — claims he “fired” Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg for a few days after their spectacular intra-team crash in the 2016 Spanish GP. It’s quite a line! Then there’s this: “Everybody needs somebody to love, something to do and something to dream about.” Too right! The third is another quote, about how Wolff expects his new F1 standings leaders — Kimi Antonelli and Russell — to keep things clean after his bruising experience leading Hamilton and Rosberg: “I completely understand that you’re a competitor. You need to beat your teammate. You need to beat all of them out there. And I can’t expect a puppy outside of the car and a lion in the car. “We accept you racing out there and racing each other out there as long as you respect our values and don’t crash into each other.” And the fourth is how that point, one Wolff has been pretty firm on since 2016, reinforces an argument I made in this column this week. That Russell would be wrong to “get his elbows out” to beat Antonelli this year, as 13-time-F1-race-winner-turned-TV-pundit David Coulthard said recently. This followed Antonelli, a second-year F1 driver, surging past 2026 preseason favorite Russell in the early season standings. For Wolff, any efforts to destabilize the atmosphere at Mercedes — a tactic many famous and successful drivers have used to defeat a teammate in a one-team tie fight — would be akin to the two W17s crashing. And he’s clear on what he thinks about that possibility. He’s spent too long investing in both Antonelli and Russell, via Mercedes’ junior program, as well as waiting for Mercedes to finally get back to the top, to not act if things get ugly. Plus, although the two sides aren’t currently talking, we know deep down Wolff would still like to sign Verstappen if he were to suddenly become available after all … The lesson for Russell, for me, is: “Keep the peace.” Now, if you don’t already subscribe, head here to sign up for Peak’s excellent newsletter. 🏎 The Formula 2 championship will replace its lost races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia with rounds in Miami and Montreal. 🇺🇸 The replacement races potentially stop 2026 Cadillac test driver and F2 racer Colton Herta from making a one-off Indianapolis 500 — possibly for Andretti — with the Canadian GP controversially taking place on the same day (May 24). 🇨🇦 Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll is making his GT racing debut in the GT World Challenge Europe season-opening race at Paul Ricard, France. He spoke to Verstappen about how to arrange his entry with the Comtoyou Racing team that fields an Aston Vantage AMR GT3 EVO car. 📫 Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters. 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