F1 News: Red Bull Lose Key Engineer To McLaren In Devastating Blow
On January 1, 2024, a significant shift is coming to Formula 1. McLaren has announced that Rob Marshall, a long-serving Red Bull expert, will join their ranks as the new Technical Director, Engineering & Design. This move comes following the exit of James Key from the Technical Director's position.
Marshall's new role will be within the Formula 1 Technical Executive team, placing him side-by-side with Peter Prodromou and David Sanchez. Directly answering to Team Principal Andrea Stella, Marshall is poised to take on the technical helm of the team.
Marshall brings an impressive 17-year tenure at Red Bull to his new role at McLaren, having served in a notable capacity as the Chief Engineering Officer. With his appointment, McLaren shows a clear intention to enhance their technical competence significantly.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained in a statement:
“I am incredibly pleased that Rob will be joining McLaren. With over 25 years working in motorsport, Rob comes to us with a wealth of expertise and experience, elevated by his tenure and track record at Red Bull Racing.
“Rob’s appointment is one of the fundamental steps and a natural fit to aid the team’s journey to get back to our winning ways.
“We are a team with the ambition of fighting for championships, but over the last couple of seasons we have not shown a steady upward trend from an on-track competitiveness point of view. Over the last few months, we have worked towards inverting this trend.
“The approach we have adopted is comprehensive and is based on strengthening the team from a people and expertise point of view, along with the ongoing projects to upgrade technology and infrastructure that will shortly come to fruition.
“People and culture are our most important resource. We have recently invested and worked towards developing and empowering the internal talents available at McLaren, and we already perceive and measure the positive impact.
“In parallel, we have been strengthening our roster by bringing new talents on board. The list was already strong and encouraging, and the addition of a high-end and skilled individual like Rob will further consolidate our ability to establish the highest technical standards at McLaren and be in condition to design winning F1 cars. We look forward to welcoming Rob in the near future.”
Red Bull team chief Christian Horner has also released a statement of the move for Marshall. He commented:
“We would like to thank Rob for everything he has done for the team over the past 17 years. His work on the generation of cars that gave us four incredible championship doubles between 2010 and 2013 was truly outstanding.
“In the years since he has continued to be a key figure at the team and in 2016 took on the broader role of Chief Engineering Officer which has seen him involved in other projects across the business.”
“His influence will be missed but once again we thank him for all he has done and wish him the very best in his new role.”