Red Bull appoints Marko successor as Mekies gives key development update

Lagrue joins from Mercedes where he has been responsible for the Silver Arrows' Junior Driver Programme since 2016 reporting directly to CEO and Team Principal Laurent Mekies.

Lagrue has been pivotal in identifying and developing young talent at Mercedes having helped steer current drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli all the way to full-time Formula 1 race seats and fighting at the top of the F1 standings. He is expected to replace former motorsport advisor Helmut Marko at Red Bull who helped the Milton Keynes outfit develop the likes of Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel over two decades.

“Gwen is one of the best talent developers in F1 and I know first-hand the expertise, leadership and passion he brings to developing young drivers,” said team boss Mekies. “The Red Bull Junior Programme has always been an integral part of our success and to have Gwen at the helm is a reflection of the importance we still place on developing the next generation of F1 talent.”

The Frenchman also paid tribute to Marko, who departed Red Bull after 20 years in December 2025. “Today we want to again recognise the extraordinary contribution Helmut Marko has made over more than two decades in creating and leading the Junior Programme,” said Mekies.For his vision, commitment and his ability to find and nurture exceptional talent, the Junior Programme has become the benchmark in F1 and he deserves enormous credit for that.”

“As we continue building the next chapter of Oracle Red Bull Racing, attracting leaders of the calibre of Gwen is fundamental to our ambitions. We are building our high performance organisation with great people across the business, and Gwen is an important addition on that journey. "Together we will build on an incredibly strong foundation whilst continuing to evolve the programme for the future,” he said.

Mekies has also provided an update on Red Bull’s plans to decide whether it will focus its development efforts on the RB22 in 2026 or turn its attention to 2027.

But the Dutchman could have to resign himself to being stuck with his current machinery sooner rather than later, with Mekies confirming Red Bull’s plan to turn their focus to 2027 development earlier than they had done the season prior, despite Verstappen remaining unhappy with the RB22 – even despite a stunning drive to P2 at the weekend’s Hungarian GP.

When asked by GPblog about short-term plans, the Frenchman said: "At some point we’ll have to make a call on the balance between this year and next year. And I expect that to come sooner than what we did last year especially with the way the regulations are. So we shall choose."

Mekies also said that Red Bull have made a huge development push in recent months but it is difficult to see the Austrian team continue in “that rhythm”. He continued. “For us we have brought a huge amount of development to the car between race one and here in order to try to correct as soon as possible the big deficit we had at the beginning.

"And it's hard to see that we will keep up with that pace, but we need to see what is the best way to try and close these last three tenths," he said, without giving any indication of when Red Bull will bring the next upgrade package.