Red Bull hire Aston Martin engineer Tom McCullough as head of racing

Red Bull have head-hunted former Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough to become their head of racing from 2027.

The 50-year-old Briton is a replacement for Gianpiero Lambiase, who is moving to McLaren to become their chief racing officer at an unspecified time by 2028.

Red Bull said in a statement that they “looked forward to the wealth of experience and expertise he will bring to the role” when he joins at the beginning of 2027.

McCullough, a highly respected figure in F1, spent more than a decade at the team now known as Aston Martin, through its previous guises as Force India and Racing Point. Before that, he worked at Williams and Sauber.

In January 2025, a restructure led to him being moved off the F1 race team and to their performance technologies division.

The new role effectively runs all aspects of the race team under team principal Laurent Mekies.

It remains to be seen whether his appointment will ease the path to Red Bull and McLaren negotiating a settlement that allows Lambiase to leave earlier than currently stated.

Lambiase has become well known as Max Verstappen’s race engineer, and for the direct and unfiltered relationship between them through their team radio messages.