Red Bull F1 veteran Rocquelin moves to junior programme role

Christian Horner has paid tribute to Red Bull Racing head of race engineering Guillaume 'Rocky' Rocquelin ahead of the Frenchman’s final Formula 1 race in a frontline team role.

Rocquelin is moving sideways to a new job overseeing the many drivers in the Red Bull junior programme after over 15 seasons with the Milton Keynes-based outfit.

His former duties will be absorbed by Gianpiero Lambiase, who will continue to serve as Max Verstappen’s engineer on race weekends.

Rocquelin, 47, made his name in Indycar racing with the PacWest and Newman-Haas teams before moving to Red Bull in 2008, initially as David Coulthard’s race engineer.

He then switched to Sebastian Vettel, and was thus an integral part of the German’s four world championship titles in 2010-13.

He became head of race engineering in 2015, contributing to a fifth drivers’ title with Verstappen in 2021.

“The engineering team is continuing to evolve, and especially as we have to look at efficiencies with the budget cap, and so on,” said Horner.

“I think 'Rocky' has done an amazing job trackside for us over the last 15 or 16 years, race engineering Sebastian to all of his race victories and world championships, and obviously leading the engineering team to last year's success as well.

Podium: race winner Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull Racing, second place Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, third place Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1, Guillaume Rocquelin, Red Bull Racing Race Engineer

Photo by: Sutton Images

“He is going to evolve and take on a new role working with our plethora of young drivers, where we'll be looking to utilise all his experience from working with so many drivers, and with so much engineering background to continue to develop the Red Bull junior drivers, and very much take a leading role in that project and how they integrate obviously into Red Bull Racing, and applying scientific tools to that as well.

“So it's an exciting, new challenge for 'Rocky', and it will be his last race weekend here before he moves on to that role.”

Regarding Lambiase’s promotion, Horner added: “The restructure will see 'GP' taking a step up to become the lead engineer trackside while still maintaining the role as Max's race engineer.

“So it's evolution, it's great to see that within the team. And I think that both of the guys are going to excel in their next roles.”