Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies was effusive in his praise of Tom Hart, who stepped up to race engineer duties for Max Verstappen for the first time in Austin.

Hart and Verstappen battled against team radio issues through the race, with his longtime performance engineer set to eventually step up fully and take over the role soon to be vacated by GianPiero Lambiase.

New Max Verstappen engineer did ‘excellent job’ in Austin – Mekies

Verstappen and Lambiase have struck up a driver-engineer dynamic long compared to an ‘old married couple’, and though the two have worked together since Verstappen’s arrival at Red Bull in 2016, Lambiase will be taking on a role of chief racing officer at McLaren no later than the 2028 season.

With his transfer to McLaren necessitating a new race engineer, Hart was selected to fill Lambiase’s place on race engineering duties, with Verstappen driving his way to third place in Austin on Sunday.

Mekies confirmed Hart and Lambiase will alternate in the role as the remainder of the season progresses, and while he acknowledged it takes time to build a rapport, the Red Bull team principal was pleased with the pair’s first weekend’s work.

“Look, I think he did an excellent job,” Mekies said of Hart after the race.

“I certainly remember what it is to be on your first race as a race engineer, and he picked a fairly complicated race to do that.

“That was not his choice – but jokes aside, I think he really did an excellent job.

More from the United States GP

“First qualifying, first race, he has managed to channel very well the work of the engineering teams behind him to Max. Of course the race was a complicated race, and we are probably a bit frustrated with the P3, which is the good news, but I really think he did an excellent job, and he was very well supported by GP as well in the background.

“You cannot recreate a relationship in no time, but I have every confidence that we are going to see him ramping up and building that relationship with Max.

“As part of our plan, we will alternate Tom and GP to the end of the year. It’s a combination of other considerations, it’s what we do with FP1 drivers and so forth and so on. It’s just part of the plan.”