Mercedes’ top scout Gwen Lagrue joins Red Bull as director of junior programme
Mercedes’ top talent scout, Gwen Lagrue, is leaving the Silver Arrows and joining Red Bull to become the director of the Red Bull Junior Programme.
Lagrue is widely known as one of Formula 1’s talent gurus, tasked with nurturing Mercedes’ rising stars for the last decade including names such as George Russell. One of the biggest discoveries he made was 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli, and he played an instrumental role in the Italian driver signing with Mercedes in 2019.
Lagrue, 50, spent 11 years with Mercedes and said in the news release he feels “this was the right moment to take on a new challenge and continue growing personally and professionally”. He acknowledged how notable the Red Bull Junior Programme is for its driver development, as it has produced world champions like Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.
Mercedes thanked Lagrue via a social media post, noting his help with developing young drivers and “made a fantastic contribution” to the team.
“We have built a true successor to the original Mercedes-Benz junior team, and you leave in place a talented group to carry on this work,” the post reads. “Professional relationships may come to an end, but we will always remain friends, with a shared mindset.
“We wish you well for your next challenge.”
Lagrue is effectively replacing Helmut Marko, who left Red Bull at the end of 2025. Marko was the long-time motorsport advisor for Red Bull and employed directly by Red Bull GmbH. He served as an advisor to Red Bull Racing since the team joined the F1 grid in 2005.
Team principal Laurent Mekies acknowledged Marko’s contribution to creating and leading Red Bull’s junior program for more than two decades in the news release. He added that “the Junior Programme has become the benchmark in F1 because of his vision, commitment and ability to identify and develop exceptional talents and he deserves enormous credit for that”.
Lagrue will now lead the famed Red Bull driver development program, tasked with “overseeing the identification, development and progression of the next generation of F1 talent,” the team said in its announcement. Mekies called the program “a cornerstone of Red Bull’s success” in the news release of Lagrue joining the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
The addition of Lagrue comes at a time when Red Bull has lost numerous high-level employees to F1 competitors in recent years.
This includes big names like Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley, former chief designer Rob Marshall, ex-head of strategy Will Courtenay and Max Verstappen’s longtime race engineer GianPiero Lambiase — who is McLaren-bound in the coming years. This includes one of the most prominent departures, that of Christian Horner, who was sacked last July after 20 years with the team.