Verstappen’s engineer: “If this hadn’t happened, Max would have eaten me alive”

Max Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase has revealed what helped him establish a successful working relationship with the Formula 1 champion.

The British-Italian engineer has been working in Formula 1 for more than 20 years. He started his career with the Jordan team, which later became Midland, Spiker and Force India.

He joined Red Bull in 2015 and has been Max Verstappen’s engineer since 2016.

The engineer shared his first impressions of working with Verstappen:

“What immediately caught my eye was this guy’s incredible talent. He absorbed absolutely everything. And I’m not exaggerating. For him, it was like playing PlayStation. Some of the instructions on how to operate the systems were very complicated, especially when you go 99-100 percent at once, but he wasn’t wrong. After three days in the simulator, you already knew you were in for something special.”

Lambiase also admitted that his own experience played an important role in establishing the partnership:

“The fact that I was a fairly experienced engineer at the time allowed me to build a relationship with him. If this had been my first or second year as a racing engineer, he would have eaten me alive.”

During the winter break, Lambiase was considered a possible transfer to Williams or Aston Martin, but it was later confirmed that he will remain at Red Bull and will continue to serve as Verstappen’s race president and race engineer for the 2026 season.