Red Bull Appoints Tom McCullough as Head of Racing from 2027
Red Bull have pulled off a major backroom coup, prising former Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough into a newly created role as head of racing from 2027.
The 50-year-old Briton, one of the paddock’s most respected operators, has been lined up as the long-term replacement for Gianpiero Lambiase, who is heading to McLaren as their chief racing officer by 2028 at the latest.
Red Bull confirmed McCullough’s arrival for the start of 2027, stressing they “looked forward to the wealth of experience and expertise he will bring to the role”. It is more than a polite welcome. This is a strategic hire.
A proven paddock heavyweight
McCullough’s F1 CV runs deep. He has spent more than a decade at the Silverstone-based operation now known as Aston Martin, staying through its transformations from Force India to Racing Point and into its current guise. Before that, he held key roles at Williams and Sauber, quietly building a reputation as a sharp, methodical racer with a strong feel for both performance and operations.
His trajectory shifted in January 2025 when an internal restructure moved him away from the frontline F1 race team into Aston Martin’s performance technologies division. That change effectively opened the door for a rival to move in.
Red Bull have done exactly that.
The head of racing position will sit directly under team principal Laurent Mekies and will be tasked with running all aspects of the race team. It is a powerful job: part strategist, part performance chief, part operational general. In the era of cost caps and marginal gains, this is where championships are shaped as much as on the pit wall.
Lambiase, Verstappen and a delicate negotiation
McCullough’s appointment also drops straight into one of the most intriguing subplots in the paddock: the future of Gianpiero Lambiase and his partnership with Max Verstappen.
Lambiase, Verstappen’s long-time race engineer, has become a central character in Red Bull’s recent dominance. Their radio exchanges – blunt, unfiltered, sometimes spiky – have become a soundtrack to the Dutchman’s relentless success. Few driver-engineer pairings are as closely associated with a team’s identity.
Lambiase is committed to joining McLaren as chief racing officer by 2028, but the precise timing of his exit from Red Bull is still to be agreed. McCullough’s arrival in 2027 adds a new layer to that timeline.
Does his appointment smooth the way for an earlier release? Can Red Bull and McLaren find a settlement that accelerates Lambiase’s move without tearing up the competitive fabric of the next few seasons?
For now, those questions remain unanswered. What is clear is that Red Bull have moved early to secure a seasoned, battle-tested leader for the racing operation, one with deep experience of underdog fights and rapid development cycles.
From 2027, Tom McCullough will be the man charged with turning that experience into results. How the rest of the grid responds – and how quickly McLaren can get Lambiase through the door – may define the next phase of Formula 1’s power struggle.
