McLaren have announced the signing of Red Bull’s Head of Strategy, Will Courtenay as their new Sporting Director.
Courtenay will be leaving Red Bull after two decades with the team, having joined them when they raced as Jaguar before the operation was brought by the energy drinks firm.
His signing is part of McLaren’s strengthening of their senior leadership team, with Courtenay set to report into Racing Director Randeep Singh.
But McLaren will have to wait a little under two years for Courtenay to join, though with Red Bull saying he “continues to be part of their team seeing out his contract until mid-2026”.
Courtenay is the third senior member of staff to choose to leave Red Bull in the last six months.
Design guru Adrian Newey is set to leave to become Managing Technical Partner at Aston Martin while Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley is to become Team Principal at Audi next season.
Red Bull has since restructured the team following Wheatley’s departure, with a series of changes headlined by Verstappen’s race engineer Giapiero Lambiase becoming Head of Racing.
Courtenay will now team up with former Red Bull colleague Rob Marshall at McLaren, with Marshall as chief designer.
We are delighted to welcome Will to McLaren. His experience, professionalism and passion for motorsport make him the ideal candidate to lead our F1 sporting function. We are now entering a key phase in our journey as a team, and we are confident that he will be a great addition to our strong leadership team as we strive to continue challenging for wins and championships.
Andrea Stella, Team Principal on the news.
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