Red Bull Content Pool

This will be Hadjar’s race engineer at Red Bull for the 2026 season

12:04, 10 Jan

Updated: 12:12, 10 Jan

byNicole Mulder

Max Verstappen has formed a duo with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase for ten years. But who will be Isack Hadjar’s race engineer in his debut F1 season with Red Bull?

Like his most recent predecessors, Hadjar will team up with Richard Wood, GPblog has learned—unless something changes right before the new Formula 1 season, but for now everything remains as it is. Verstappen’s new teammate will therefore be guided by Wood during the F1 sessions.

'Woody' race engineer for Perez, Tsunoda, Lawson, and Hadjar

In 2025, Wood replaced Hugh Bird, who until then served as Sergio Perez’s race engineer. The year before, he had already been substituted by Wood a few times due to paternity leave, but since 2025 Bird has no longer been on the pit wall and took on a different role, as GPblog reported at the time. He was appointed Suspension Group Team Leader, a position that doesn’t require him to attend every Grand Prix.

Since then, Wood has been the regular race engineer for Verstappen’s teammate. Early last year that was still Liam Lawson, but after two races the partnership with Yuki Tsunoda began.

Tsunoda has now also lost his seat at Red Bull Racing. He is being replaced by Hadjar, who will therefore take over not only the Japanese driver’s seat but also his race engineer.

Richard Wood becomes Isack Hadjar’s permanent race engineer - Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Who is Richard Wood, Isack Hadjar’s race engineer?

Richard Wood has been working at Red Bull for more than thirteen years and has been part of the team since 2012. In recent seasons, the Brit has held various technical roles within the organization before taking on the role of race engineer.

Between 2021 and 2024 he was a performance engineer, focusing on optimizing the car, both in terms of setup and operations. In addition, he was active as a supporting race engineer and served as a performance engineer on Red Bull’s simulator.

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