The Mercedes driver scout involved in discovering Kimi Antonelli is leaving the team to join rivals Red Bull.

Frenchman Gwen Lagrue, 50, is to take up a new role leading Red Bull’s driver development programme.

Lagrue has been recruited essentially as a replacement for Helmut Marko, who retired from his long-time role as Red Bull’s motorsport adviser at the end of last year.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies, Mercedes and Lagrue himself all declined to comment when approached by BBC Sport.

It is unclear when Lagrue will be free to take up his new role.

Mercedes and Red Bull are in the process of negotiating an agreement that would see him released from his existing contract as driver development adviser to the Mercedes F1 team.

At Mercedes, his role will likely be filled by a minor reshuffle of the existing young-driver programme, arguably the most effective in F1.

Bradley Lord, who was already involved, was recently promoted to deputy team principal from his previous position as communications director and senior adviser to team principal Toto Wolff.

Mercedes have a team of up to 10 people analysing the junior categories, right down to the very junior levels of karting, to find promising new talent.

Lagrue has worked for Mercedes for a decade.

George Russell was the first signing for the team following his appointment, a few months after the Briton famously approached Wolff and gave him a PowerPoint presentation arguing his case to be part of the Mercedes junior programme.

Russell has been supported by Mercedes since then as he completed the junior categories, was seconded to Williams for an F1 debut in 2019 and then promoted to Mercedes in 2022.

Mercedes signed Antonelli when he was an 11-year-old racing in go-karts and he has been mentored by Mercedes through an accelerated programme that saw him replace Lewis Hamilton in the team when the seven-time champion joined Ferrari at the start of 2025.

Antonelli is proving his billing as a generational talent in dominating the F1 world championship in only his second season.

The 19-year-old has won five races and set six pole positions in 10 grands prix so far this season before Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix and is leading Russell by 25 points.

Among other successes at Mercedes while Lagrue has been running the young-driver programme are Frenchman Esteban Ocon, who was their junior driver and has been managed by them through his 10-year career in F1 at Manor, Force India, Renault/Alpine and now Haas, and their current F1 reserve driver, the Dane Frederik Vesti.

Lagrue also personally supported current Williams driver Alex Albon when he was dropped by Marko from Red Bull’s driver development programme in 2016.

He helped Albon with career advice and in sourcing budget to further his career until the Anglo-Thai rejoined Red Bull for his F1 debut for the second team, then called Toro Rosso, in 2019.