Adrian Newey speaks about leaving Red Bull. This week the German media outlet AMuS reported they had sources at Red Bull who confirmed Adrian Newey will be leaving the Red Bull Racing F1 team. This was picked up by the British media with Mark Hughes writing a speculative piece which assumed the guru designer would be moving teams, yet there was not a single quotable source to confirm this.

Adrian Newey is in his 20th season with RBR and was there at the start of the project as the ruins of the Ford backed Jaguar outfit was bought out. The team has come far in that time, first being considered by the rest as a joke, an upstart, the party team and now sits with thirteen world championship’s adorning the trophy cabinet.

 

 

 

Newey cast as “moralistic”

Rumours of Newey leaving Red Bull first sprung up following the saga that engulfed team boss Christian Horner at the beginning of this season, yet the veteran engineer has attended each race so far, unlike Max Verstappen’s father who called for Horner to step down from his role in the team.

The presumption that Newey would leave was based on an unknown premise that he is unhappy with Horner’s behaviour toward the female employee who accused him of “coercive behaviour.” Yet casting Newey as some kind of moralistic or judgemental character is not to know the man behind Red Bull’s technical exploits.

At 65 years of age, Newey is said to have big money offers from Aston Martin and Ferrari to lead their technical departments. However, his current contract runs until the end of 2025, then add in the lead times to recruit other engineers and design personnel and the reality is it would be at least 2027 before the impact of Newey joining any other team would be felt.

Newey was in his sixth year with Red Bull by the time they’d developed a championship winning car and with money being no object in the eyes of the team’s shareholders, the lead time to creating a championship winning car was clearly down to other factors. Of course Ferrari and Aston Martin both have better facilities than Red Bull inherited from Jaguar, so for the Newey impact to show through would probably take less time than it did at RBR.

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Newey spoke about RBR “family” last December

Those who are promoting the tale that Newey is upset with Horner and now wants to leave Red Bull should maybe consider the words of the great man just over four months ago when he spoke to the “Formula for Success” podcast in December 2023. There he revealed his admiration for Ferrari admitting he’d been “close” to joining the most historic of F1 teams, not once. But on three separate occasions.

However, Newey continued stating he was “comfortable” at RBR and the notion of leaving the team he helped to create would be like walking out on his family.

“Ferrari is this magic brand that, in all honesty, probably everybody in motor racing is always fascinated by and tempted to join if they’re offered the opportunity,” Newey informed the listeners.

“I’ve been approached – and come close – three times now. One of those was in IndyCars way back.

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Red Bull culture part of their success

“It’s an amazing brand. It has all this mystique about it. It’s effectively the Italian national team, with all the pros and cons that come with that.

“The cons are that if you don’t do a great job, you are absolutely berated and torn apart. Of course, if you do a good job, then you’re a national hero. So that brings all its own pressures.

“But I have to try to take the passion side out of it and approach it from an engineering side.”

One of the key characteristics that shaped the Red Bull team was the lack of corporate culture cultivated by Horner and Newey. This was something Christian Horner addressed when explaining the reason for rejecting Porsche’s advances: “It was recognised that our DNA would be affected if we could not continue to operate exactly in the manner that has made us successful with that ability to make quick-fire decisions without having to go through layers and layers of process and bureaucracy.”

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Newey “comfortable” with RBR setup

That very DNA has been created by Horner and Newey in partnership who have made the Red Bull team their own. A move to Ferrari, as Newey explains above, would see Adrian in a very different culture from the one at Red Bull given the Scuderia is bigger than any individual.

“The teams I’ve worked for, I’ve hugely enjoyed and of course Red Bull because that’s a team I’ve been at, more or less, from the start.

“It’s a team that I’ve been very centrally involved in developing the engineering side of the team, so it’s a team I kind of feel comfortable with. We all know how we work.

“I suppose to change now – I’m not saying I would never, ever change because you should never say that – but it would be like walking out on your family, because that’s what it’s become.”

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Culture crucial to Newey

The closest Newey came to joining Ferrari was in 2014 at the start of the V6 hybrid era. Red Bull had partnered with Renault for its power trains but the French company’s V6 F1 design lacked power and reliability. Nothing Newey could do with the car design would make it competitive with Mercedes and he admits at this time the draw towards Italy was at its strongest.

In his 2017 autobiography, Newey described the innovative and adventurous culture within the Red Bull F1 team and credits Christian Horner’s long standing leadership role as the motive behind his decision to stay in Milton Keynes.

“We’d gone from being the paddock joke, the upstart, the party-hard fizzy drinks company, to four-time World Champions, and we’d done it the old-fashioned way, using principles that to me were in-keeping with the true spirit of motor racing.

“I thought back to the beginning of the 2012 season when we couldn’t get the car right, and I remembered with pride that our shoulders hadn’t dropped the faith. We’d got our heads down, worked through it and solved the problem.

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Is Newey really upset with Horner?

“I thought how we’d developed young drivers instead of buying up star names; how we’d helped put Milton Keynes on the map; how throughout it all we’ve never stopped working; how we’d always taken the road less travelled, even when it meant facing seemingly insurmountable problems or technical challenges; how we never took the simple option in search of an easy life or sat back on our laurels feeling pleased with ourselves and decided ‘that’ll do’.

“We’d always continued innovating.”

The only significant change in circumstances since Newey told the podcast last December that he couldn’t walk out on his own “family”, is the saga which has clouded the team since February.

Adrian has partied with the best of them (including this writer at Goodwood) and despite his public demeanour is no shy and retiring violet. The suggestion he is upset with Horner over accusations unproven is ludicrous and for now is the only reason the topic of Newey leaving Red Bull has emerged.

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Retirement not an option

A subsequent story has developed in parallel with the Newey offski rumours and it is that he is getting on a bit and may in fact retire in 2025. This is not to know the man who is motorsport crazy through and through and Newey has stated in the past his job is his passion.

All appears to have settled down behind the scenes at Red Bull – for now – even the Austrian shareholders believed to be behind the Horner assassination attempt have fallen into line.

The Newey/Horner partnership is as strong as ever and looks set to claim four more titles over the this season and the next. And for those who say Newey hasn’t spoken about the rumours of his departure from Red Bull, so nothing is certain – he has – less than four months ago and a good family member doesn’t walk out when another member may have behaved unwisely.

Newey told Autosport in January 2023:  “I’m lucky enough to be doing what I have always wanted to do and enjoy the job. I’ve loved it. Of course, my career can’t go on forever, so I think as long as the team want me and I keep enjoying it, I’ll keep going.”

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