The promised move of Red Bull’s Tom Hart to become Alexander Albon’s new race engineer has fallen through, so Williams must now look for a replacement
Alexander Albon is looking for a new race engineer. It seemed like the solution had already been found in Tom Hart, but Red Bull was ultimately able to convince the Brit to stay, where he is set to succeed Gianpiero Lambiase, who will move to McLaren in 2028.
For Albon and his Williams team, this means they’ll have to look for an alternative, as Hart had already been firmly lined up to succeed James Urwin, who has served as Albon’s race engineer to date and will take on a new role within the team.
“James, my current race engineer, will be taking on a role at our factory in the future—and I think he’ll be excellent at it,” says Albon. “For us, it’s now simply a matter of finding someone to take over this process and continue James’s role as race engineer next year.”
“Of course, we have a few people in mind, but I was personally involved with every person we contacted,” says the Thai driver, who had also approved Hart’s appointment.
“We had, so to speak, a list of candidates in mind of who we wanted to bring in,” he says. Hart was originally on that list as well. “I thought to myself: Yeah, Tom is great. But we just don’t have Tom.”
Hart had already agreed to join Williams but has now decided against the move because he will remain at Red Bull to succeed Gianpiero Lambiase. Hart served as Max Verstappen’s performance engineer for many years and was promoted in 2026 to a senior role in which he oversees both cars.
Following Lambiase’s departure, he is now set to become Verstappen’s race engineer. However, should the Dutchman decide to switch teams, he would also oversee his successor.
When asked if he is disappointed that his designated new race engineer will not be joining the team after all, Albon waves it off: “No. I mean, we obviously tried to bring Tom on board. I think Tom is a great guy, a fantastic engineer. But we also have other plans in mind.”
