Key Red Bull exit could affect Verstappen as team 'SPLIT' touted

Three-time world champion Max Verstappen could soon feel the effects of Red Bull's latest senior departure.

Earlier this week, the team announced that sporting director Jonathan Wheatley would be leaving the team, with Wheatley heading to become team principal of Audi's F1 project.

READ MORE: Verstappen admits CHEATING when teasing Red Bull team-mate

Audi are set to come into the sport in 2026 and Wheatley is their latest signing ahead of their Sauber takeover.

Wheatley is the second senior Red Bull figure to announce his departure from the team following Adrian Newey's revelation earlier in 2024.

Naturally, Red Bull are now making plans for their sporting director's departure, with reports suggesting they could make an internal hire.

READ MORE: Verstappen admits CHEATING when teasing Red Bull team-mate

Red Bull 'split' could affect Max Verstappen

According to Autosport, Red Bull could split the sporting director position currently held by Wheatley, with some of the responsibilities being handed to Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase as they look to avoid an external appointment.

Lambiase has become a familiar voice and face to fans of the sport in recent years, largely due to his radio communications with the three-time champion.

As well as being Verstappen's race engineer, Lambiase is also currently Red Bull's head of race engineering.

It remains to be seen what Lambiase's new role would look like were the sporting director role to be split, but the above report claims that another individual would be responsible for communicating with the FIA - not the British-Italian.

We saw during the 2021 season finale at Abu Dhabi just how crucial that communication can be, so it makes sense that the team would want an individual to solely focus on this during a race weekend.

If that responsibility was not to be given to Lambiase, it could perhaps continue to see him act as Verstappen's race engineer, although that is simply an inference at this stage and not explicitly stated in the report.

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