After numerous high-profile departures, Red Bull needs a driving force again according to Karun Chandhok – Ralf Schumacher also calls for new additions “very quickly”
How many more departures can Red Bull cope with? Having already lost big names such as Adrian Newey, Christian Horner, Jonathan Wheatley and Helmut Marko, Gianpiero Lambiase recently announced that he would be leaving the team for McLaren by the end of 2027 at the latest.
Expert Karun Chandhok explains on Sky: “Laurent Mekies and the owners of Red Bull in Austria have a big task ahead of them. They have to find out: How can we stop this? How can we stop the ‘brain drain’? How do we make ourselves attractive?”
For at the moment, from the outside, Red Bull does not give the impression of being the racing team that people want to switch to. “At the moment, you want to recruit people from Mercedes,” explains Chandhok with regard to the Silver Arrows’ good start to the season.
“And I think one of the things they need to think about is that good people attract other good people,” says Chandhok about Red Bull, explaining: “Adrian Newey moved from team to team, bringing in good people. Ross Brawn did the same.”
In his opinion, the team needs a driving force in order to become attractive to new employees (again). “I think that’s something Red Bull really needs to worry about,” says Chandhok. Because at the moment, the opposite could be the case for the Bulls.
Why are so many people leaving Red Bull?
On the imminent departure of Lambiase, for example, Chandhok says: “How long will it be before ‘GP’ calls the other 20 people in the engineering office and says: ‘Hey, you know what, guys? This site here in Woking is a really great place to work. How about you come here?”
“They need a big-name new hire – not just because of the skills that person brings, but also because of the people they will attract,” Chandhok therefore emphasizes with regard to the Bulls. Another expert, Ralf Schumacher, takes a similar view.
In Sky’s podcast Backstage Boxengasse, he explains that Red Bull must now try to “get new people very, very quickly”. The six-time Grand Prix winner believes that one of the reasons for the so-called “brain drain” is the budget cap.
“At some point, the team will no longer be able to keep the good engineers, because of course they are getting offers from left and right like crazy,” he explains. Lambiase is also said to have received a financially very lucrative contract from McLaren.
“Everyone wants to cash in on last year’s success,” believes Schumacher, who emphasizes: “I understand that too.” Nevertheless, it is now up to Red Bull to fill these gaps as quickly as possible.
