Carlos Sainz Comments Add Fuel to Andrea Stella Ferrari Rumors After McLaren Shake-Up
After news that Max Verstappens race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, is leaving Red Bull for McLaren went viral, rumors of McLaren team principal Andrea Stella moving back to Ferrari have gained traction, especially after comments made by Williams Racing driver Carlos Sainz resurfaced online, linking Stella to Ferrari.MotorBiscuit reported Lambiases exit from Red Bull, set to happen at the end of 2027, as he joins the Papaya outfit in 2028 in a multi-million dollar deal. This comes less than two years after Lambiase became the head of racing at Red Bull during an internal restructuring in 2024.Lambiases McLaren signing has led to speculation about a potential change in McLarens leadership structure, especially amid rumors of Stella moving back to Ferrari, a team where he worked for 15 years as a performance engineer for Michael Schumacher and Kimi Rikknen, before becoming a race engineer for Rikknenand eventually for Fernando Alonso.Stella joined McLaren in 2015 as head of race operations and became team principal in December 2022. According to a report by F1 Oversteer, Stella is heading to Ferrari in the future, and as a result, Lambiase has been poached from Red Bull to potentially fill his role.Read More from MotorBiscuit: Kimi Antonelli Admits Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen Have Stopped Helping HimLewis Hamilton Drifts Through Tokyo in a Ferrari F40 With Kim Kardashian by His Side VideoDodge Teases a Sub $30,000 Sports Car That Comes With Style, Attitude, And PerformanceAtlassian Williams F1 Team on X | Carlos SainzThe report quoted F1 reporter Jacky Martens, who stated that Stella has already signed a pre-contract with Ferrari. But it remains to be seen who Stella replaces at the Italian team if the rumor turns out to be true. Could it be Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur?Amid Stellas Ferrari rumors, Sainzs statements from his time with McLaren resurfaced, in which he said he wished to take Stella and other key members with him to Ferrari. The Spaniard joined McLaren in 2019 but left after the 2020 season to join Ferrari. Appearing on F1s Beyond the GridPodcast last month, Sainz acknowledged Stellas expertise, naming him among the McLaren figures he would bring to Ferrari. Sainz said:I remember telling my team when we were leaving McLaren, This team is actually a very good race team. These people are going to go up, theyre going to keep climbing.I know how good Andrea Stella is, I know how good [technical director] Pete Prodromou is and I remember leaving that team and having two, three or four names that if I could have taken them with me to Ferrari, I for sure would have taken them.He added: I knew they were doing things well and they were really good people that I enjoyed working with a lot.
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