Rennie replaces Lambiase as Verstappen's race engineer at Spa

Max Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase will miss this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, with Simon Rennie set to take over this key role at Spa-Francorchamps.

The four-time F1 champion completed this year's Austrian Grand Prix weekend with a new race engineer as his regular race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase was been forced to miss the Spielberg round for personal reasons.

It marked the first time during his Red Bull career that the Dutchman was not supported by Lambiase as he completed all his races with the Milton Keynes-based team with the British engineer by his side.

Lambiase made his return at the British Grand Prix but, he will be absent from this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix as well, with Red Bull claiming that Verstappen's regular race engineer will miss the Spa round for personal reasons.

Rennie joined Red Bull in 2013 to replace Mark Webber's long time race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam while Pilbeam took over as chief engineer for Räikkönen at Lotus for 2013, their roles effectively replacing each other.

After Webber's retirement, Rennie went on to work with Daniel Ricciardo in 2014. In 2019, Rennie moved to a factory role within the Red Bull team, considered to be a factor in Ricciardo's departure from the team that year. He was replaced as race engineer by Mike Lugg.

In 2020, Rennie returned to trackside action at Red Bull to become Alexander Albon's race engineer, replacing Lugg. Lugg was replaced on Albon's demand because he wanted "a more experienced engineer".

In 2021, Rennie stepped aside as Race Engineer, with Hugh Bird taking over as Race Engineer for Albon's replacement Sergio Pérez.