Adrian Newey is the most successful designer in F1 and has been perhaps the most discussed Red Bull personnel of 2024. Only Christian Horner grabbed more headlines at Red Bull to start the season. There is no shortage of speculation about which team Newey will join next. Ferrari, Williams, McLaren and Aston Martin have all been linked with the British engineer. As it stands, Aston are in very advanced talks to secure Newey’s services.
RED BULL: ADRIAN NEWEY TAKES A LESSER ROLE
“The Team announces that Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey, will leave the Red Bull Technology Group in the first quarter of 2025.
“The engineer will step back from Formula 1 car design duties to focus on… Red Bull’s first hypercar, the eagerly anticipated RB17. He will remain involved and committed to this exciting project until its completion.”
This was Red Bull’s statement from earlier this year. Essentially, this confirmed that Newey was starting an unofficial gardening period. However, Newey was still spotted in the Red Bull garage at Silverstone, taking notes while looking at the RB20 in his famous red notebook.
NEWEY OPPOSED SOME OF THE RB20’S SOLUTIONS, BUT WACHE KEPT THEM WITHOUT HIS APPROVAL
The RB20 is a strong evolution of the two previous cars, with Helmut Marko calling it a “small revolution” at the start of the year. At around the sixth round, Pierre Wache wanted to change the car’s aerodynamic profile.
He aimed to gain performance, especially at low and medium speeds, but without losing ground at high speeds. To do this, important decisions were made regarding the cooling system. Red Bull moved most of the cooling inlets to high-pressure areas, freeing up the inlet of the sidepods to maximise flow over the floor.
At the same time, the team worked to optimise the vents in the few low-pressure areas in the rear of the RB20.
In this regard, it is curious that Adrian Newey strongly opposed many elements currently present on the RB20, including part of the cooling.
Last May, after resigning, he stated to Sky Sports UK that the RB20 did not fully convince him. He was especially against the team’s cooling elements – “It is something that will change later in the season or more probably next year”.
Newey disagreed about the rear guns and with the strong extremism of the cooling. According to a source very close to the English engineer, Newey “hates those inlets placed on the side of the Halo” introduced in Japan.
Newey also did not believe that the “shark inlets” were a good path to follow.
This is interesting, especially since similar solutions have sent Ferrari on a downward spiral. However, Red Bull’s technical department went ahead with those solutions, even without his approval.
Changes behind the scenes have validated our previous reports on this issue. Adrian Newey’s influence in the RB20 has been much less than in previous years.
Red Bull’s technical direction has changed drastically in recent years. Christian Horner has entrusted Pierre Waché and Enrico Balbo with the team’s development.
This lack of motivation and stimulation, in addition to what happened within the team in the first weeks of 2024, led Newey to resign. In quite abrupt terms, this 20-year partnership came to an end.
The English genius no longer felt as important as he would have liked. Has the involution of the RB20 changed the cards on the table?
On the Silverstone grid, he was drawing some drafts of improvements for the RB20. Newey is still a Red Bull employee until March of next year. Of course, speculation about his future will rage until now.
