Red Bull prepares for the future with their recent signing of former Aston Martin engineer Tom McCullough.
In their bid to prepare for the foreseeable future, Red Bull Racing has recently signed Aston Martin engineer Tom McCullough. The British engineer, who is still serving as Performance Director of Aston Martin Performance Technologies, will join Red Bull's garage starting in 2027.
Red Bull has also confirmed that McCullough will be their new head of racing. He will replace Gianpiero Lambiase, who will leave the team in 2028 to join McLaren. Along with the head of racing title, Lambiase currently serves as Max Verstappen's race engineer. GP, as he is most often called in the Red Bull pit wall, will become McLaren's chief racing officer.
Lambiase's switch to McLaren previously fueled rumors of Verstappen joining McLaren, but they're all for naught now. The four-time F1 World Champion has signed a new contract extension that will keep him in Red Bull through 2030.
With Lambiase leaving the team in 2028, Red Bull is reportedly lining up Performance Engineer Tom Hart as Verstappen's next race engineer. It was rumored that Hart initially planned to transfer to Williams to become Alex Albon's race engineer. But the team needed him to stay, and they succeeded in convincing Hart.
McCullough brings a wealth of experience to Red Bull
Tom McCullough is a former amateur racing driver who competed in Formula Ford 2000. He would then transition to the engineering side of racing, serving as Reynard Motorsport's engineer in Le Mans and IndyCar.
McCullough finally got his F1 break in 2002, when Williams Racing hired him as a data engineer. Since then, he has worked as head of track engineering at Sauber and then Force India (currently Aston Martin).
However, Aston Martin reshuffled their technical team in 2025, moving McCullough to the Performance Technologies division. Eventually, the 50-year-old engineer decided to leave the team in 2026.
McCullough brings a wealth of experience to a Red Bull team that has recently lost several technical heads. Adrian Newey has long been gone, moving to Aston Martin last year. Other long-tenured names like deputy technical director Guillaume Cattelani and Dan Fallows have also left the team.
And then there's Helmut Marko, who officially parted ways with Red Bull at the end of last season. Marko was the team's motorsport advisor for a long time, having scouted and overseen talented Red Bull drivers.
Marko's departure came six months after former team principal Christian Horner left Red Bull. Horner led the team to six Constructors' Championship titles.
