Red Bull's Lord High Executioner, Helmut Marko, appears to have his own head on the chopping block.

The 82-year-old, who has helped launch many successful motorsport careers... and ended many more, appears to be on his way out of the Austrian team.

As the Abu Dhabi weekend drew to close, rumours spread through the paddock concerning the futures of both Marko and Gianpiero Lambiase.

Asked about his future with the team at race end, Marko told reporters: "It's not in doubt, but I will have a discussion and then I see what I do. It's a complex set of different things. I have to sleep over it and then will we see."

Lambiase had made a notably emotional radio call to Max Verstappen at the end of the race, and when asked about it the Dutchman said: "It's been an emotional year. Forget about the results this year. I also don't want to go too much into detail, but it's been tough. But I'm very happy to be able to work with someone that passionate.

"Of course, he is my race engineer, but I see him as my friend. We have lived through so many emotional things together and fantastic achievements. I'm sure he was a bit emotional after the flag. So, I'm really looking forward to leaving here and catching up with him because it's not been easy at times for him. I'm just very proud to be able to work with someone that good. A proper example of someone that never gave up this season, even through the difficult times."

Lambiase, who was promoted to the role of Head of Racing following Jonathan Wheatley's departure to Sauber, missed the Austrian and Belgian Grands Prix, and was replaced by Simon Rennie at both events. It's thought that, with Verstappen's agreement, Rennie will continue as the Dutchman's engineer, while Lambiase is promoted to a senior trackside role.

Quite why Marko looked set to go wasn't initially clear, however reports have emerged since suggesting that ever since Christian Horner's firing the Austrian has seen himself as answerable to no one.

So much so in fact that he is alleged to have lured Alex Dunne from McLaren while also signing Arvid Lindblad, both deals alleged to have been made without the authorisation of team boss Laurent Mekies or Oliver Minztlaff, the team's CEO of Corporate Projects and Investments.

It's understood that Dunne has now been dropped necessitating a significant pay-off, while it has yet to be seen what will happen with Lindblad who has already been announced at Liam Lawson's teammate at Racing Bulls.

Of course, another factor was Marko's accusation that Kimi Antonelli deliberately moved aside for Lando Norris in Qatar, effectively gifting the Briton two points - 2 points!!! - a claim that was quickly debunked - causing Red Bull to issue an official apology - but which still led to online abuse of the youngster including death threats.

Asked about the speculation on Sunday, before the Dunne story surfaced, Mekies did little to end the speculation, uttering the sort of word salad one hears before a football manager or politician is about to be fired.

"Helmut has been incredible in how supportive he has been in helping us to turn around things this year," said the Frenchman. "Obviously him and the top management had quite a few difficult decisions to make in the year, and of course we always have. But Formula 1 is not a static environment, you always adjust your organisations, and it applies to technical, it applies to sporting.

"It's completely normal that we review how we can improve the way we operate all the time," he added. "So I'm not saying that specifically for Helmut, but I'm saying that in general we are in an environment where we always challenge each other and look for the next steps, no matter how small it is in trying to work together.

"I can only thank Helmut for the role he has played in making what looked like a difficult situation at the mid-season making work with the support," he concluded.