Red Bull Racing has taken a senior figure from its sister team Racing Bulls as part of a reshuffle of its Formula 1 technical department.

After winning the drivers' world championship every year from 2021 through to 2024 with Max Verstappen, Red Bull's dominance ended in 2025 amid car problems and internal strife, as McLaren usurped it as F1's leading team.

Red Bull has since started F1's new rules era in 2026 in a bad way. Though its first-ever in-house engine has been perfectly competitive - and earned praise from rivals for such an immediate achievement - Red Bull's car has been poor.

Verstappen and new driver Isack Hadjar have both criticised it extensively, especially after it proved to be a midfield car in China and Japan rather than part of the lead group.

Hadjar even said the chassis was "terrible" and both drivers indicated Red Bull had no idea where to start improving it.

F1's enforced April break, caused by the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, has afforded Red Bull a chance to work through upgrades to improve its aerodynamic load and reduce weight.

Alongside that, Red Bull Racing has rejigged its senior technical leadership. Though it stands by technical director Pierre Wache for now, it has looked to support him with a "series of organisational changes within its technical department aimed at reinforcing its focus on performance and innovation".

Red Bull has named two specific individuals within that. Head of performance engineering Ben Waterhouse is promoted to chief performance and design engineer, and will be in charge of 'design and vehicle performance'.

Reporting to Waterhouse will be a new recruit as Red Bull has sought to bring in Andrea Landi as head of performance.

Landi was previously deputy technical director at Racing Bulls, in charge of car design. He adopted this role in early 2025 after the exit of technical director Jody Egginton, who was not directly replaced until Dan Fallows - previously at Red Bull Racing, before a short stint at Aston Martin - was recruited back into the Red Bull family.

Apart from being an obvious benefit of Red Bull's ownership of two teams, moving staff around fairly freely without being beholden to the kind of gardening leave a rival would impose, Landi's move is interesting given the impression over the last year or so that Red Bull's second team has actually designed more user-friendly cars.

That was certainly a strength of the 2025 Racing Bulls design, but Landi's time at the team meant he would have had more of a hand in the 2026 car - also competitive, and looking about as quick as the Red Bull, though not with the exact traits of its predecessor given the huge chassis rules overhaul this year.