The current parallels between Red Bull and a post-Schumacher Benetton

If there are any literary scholars in the crowd, it would be fascinating to know if the phrase "what goes up must come down" existed in some form prior to an apple apocryphally clonking Sir Isaac Newton's bonce. Thanks to his work on defining gravitational fields, Newton perhaps contributed to an oft-cliched idiom that can be applied to anything: the arc of a thrown object, the take-off of a plane, or an awkward segue into an article about a sports team in the mire after a period of success. 

It's week-old news now, but to reiterate for anyone who missed it: Red Bull's head of racing and long-time Max Verstappen-wrangler Gianpiero Lambiase will depart the Milton Keynes outfit for McLaren, 'no later than 2028' per the press release. McLaren might have enjoyed a small frisson of excitement when it came to jotting down the accompanying communique, noting that "the team’s ability to attract and secure top talent, like Lambiase, and previously Rob Marshall and Will Courtenay, alongside the retention and promotion of highly-talented people already within the team, etc" name-dropped two ex-Red Bull staff members that had also made the journey down the M1. 

Both Marshall and Courtenay were at Red Bull for its first spell of success from 2010-2013, and were key architects of its additional run from 2021-24. Lambiase was at Force India during the Sebastian Vettel years, but later became a vital component on joining Red Bull as he complimented Verstappen's strengths and offered his driver direction during times of need. The majority of the top-liners from both spells are now gone; Christian Horner was given the boot, Adrian Newey left for Aston Martin, Jonathan Wheatley went to Sauber/Audi for a year, and Helmut Marko left at the end of last season. 

That's not to say that Red Bull doesn't have a wealth of talent at its disposal; Pierre Wache continues to lead the technical team, Ben Waterhouse has a new and expanded role, and both chief designer Craig Skinner and chief engineer Paul Monaghan have been at the team since 2006.

However, the changing of the guard is nonetheless comparable to Benetton and its loss of key personnel after Michael Schumacher's back-to-back title wins; sure, Enstone's finest started to win titles again a decade later, but only after a prolonged lean spell once its major players had departed.

Schumacher's move to Ferrari for 1996 was announced on 16 August 1995, but the subsequent exodus from Benetton did not begin until late-1996; Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, among others, followed Schumacher to Ferrari, once the future seven-time champion had been given carte blanche to reunite the fragments his old technical team. Byrne was planning to retire altogether, but Schumacher had convinced the South African draughtsman of the merits of joining him at Maranello.

Schumacher reunited with Brawn at Ferrari in 1997

Photo by: Ercole Colombo / Studio Colombo / Getty Images

Under Jean Todt, Ferrari sought to reintegrate its design office and engine division into the same building at Ferrari's base, effectively rendering John Barnard's Godalming-based 'Ferrari Design and Development' office surplus to requirements. Barnard struck out on his own, buying his own office back from Ferrari.

Aerodynamicist Nikolas Tombazis (now the FIA's director of single-seater competition) was also lured to Ferrari, as was electronics guru Tad Czapski, although Schumacher's attempts to bring Pat Symonds in as his chief race engineer were rebuffed when Benetton offered Symonds the technical director role.

Even so, the Anglo-Italian team was thrust into a rebuilding phase; figurehead Flavio Briatore left at the end of 1997, to be replaced by Prodrive's David Richards - but Richards' attempt to convince the shareholders to sell a stake to Ford to become its factory team was ultimately vetoed by the Benetton family. Thus, he left after a year, and the team continued to tread water in the midfield with Mecachrome/Supertec-badged versions of its old Renault V10s. 

 It's certain that Red Bull will go hunting for a few names to replace some of the gaps that need filling elsewhere, perhaps to offer further assistance to Mekies on the pit wall as a successor for Lambiase

In lieu of Byrne, Nick Wirth - formerly of Simtek - was now running the design department, with James Allison as his deputy. While Benetton also tried to compensate for the Ferrari-bound Schumacher with the experience of Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger, transplanted into the driving seats from the opposite direction, but this did not produce the expected results beyond Berger's win at the 1997 German Grand Prix. It opted for youth instead with Giancarlo Fisichella and Alex Wurz but, by the time they joined, the budgets were shrinking and the cars being developed were simply lacking versus the likes of Ferrari, McLaren, and even Williams and Jordan. 

It wasn't until Renault bought the team in late 2000 that the Enstone team started to properly rebuild; with Briatore now back in the saddle, the team had been able to pull in the likes of Mike Gascoyne, Bob Bell, Jon Tomlinson, and the late Dino Toso from Jordan, and rehired Czapski and Allison from Ferrari; the latter had joined in 2005 after a five-year spell at Maranello. There were a host of internal promotions too, but the team had also been proactive in cherry-picking talent from its midfield rivals. Under Briatore and Symonds, Renault won the 2005 and 2006 championships.

This is both a cautionary tale and a story of hope for Red Bull. Wache, Waterhouse, and Skinner remain to offer continuity, as does chief aerodynamicist Enrico Balbo, and the team has also pulled in Andrea Landi from Racing Bulls to augment its technical operation. And, given the incestuousness of the F1 paddock, it's certain that Red Bull will go hunting for a few names to replace some of the gaps that need filling elsewhere, perhaps to offer further assistance to Mekies on the pit wall as a successor for Lambiase. 

Wheatley left Red Bull last year, while Lambiase will head to McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

That's the nature of Formula 1, and the cycles of boom-then-bust often coincide with changes at the top of the tree; Ferrari, for example, went through the same forced metamorphosis when Todt, Brawn, Byrne, and Schumacher left through 2006-2007. Sometimes, key personnel changes are amortised over multiple years; on other occasions, exoduses occur at once. 

Even with a tough start to the season, Red Bull shouldn't feel the need to panic. After all, the 1000-plus workforce at the team, in addition to those in its powertrain department, can overcome the departure of a few folks at management level.

The initial shock of losing more key players, and presumed sharing of the "not another one" meme (a clip of a Bristolian woman expressing her dismay at the calling of another snap election, for those devoid of context) across internal WhatsApp groups will eventually subside. Instead, it presents an opportunity for those already at the team to take the next step on the ladder, and to help lead the team out of its current difficulties.

It's probably no different to your place of work, really. F1, eh? It truly is little more than a soap opera at 200mph...

Red Bull has a rebuild on its hands - but it should be able to recover

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images