After months of rumors and speculations, Adrian Newey’s Red Bull exit materialized in a complicated legal manner. While the British designer still has a contract till 2025, he is on a gardening leave cum notice period, working on the RB17—Red Bull’s hypercar. Amid that, his Aston Martin move has also become official. While Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner hasn’t been a fan of how they announced Newey’s arrival, he knew that the Briton would decide to move on.
Horner told Channel 4, “We’ve had such a great journey with Adrian, but we knew this was coming at some point. He’s choosing a new adventure and we’ve been preparing for that. Adrian has been on the verge of retirement for about 10 years.”
An… interesting comment from Red Bull’s #F1 team boss Christian Horner on Adrian Newey making his public Aston debut while still on his Red Bull ‘gardening leave’. pic.twitter.com/IREf2UZeZc
— The Race (@wearetherace) September 13, 2024
While Newey’s decision to leave Red Bull was personal as he wished to take another challenge, the Milton-Keynes-based team has lost several key members since the start of 2024. Horner‘s controversy with a female employee at the start of the year was reportedly a reason for a lot of instability in the Austrian team’s hierarchy.
Like Newey, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley is also leaving to pursue a new challenge as Audi’s Team Principal. However, Horner pointed out that nobody is talking about the 200 people they poached from Mercedes.
While the Briton has a point, technicians and engineers at the junior level often move teams. That is why, Newey and Wheatley’s exits among others have indicated a sense of restlessness at Red Bull — which may have affected their on-track performance.
As for Newey, he had several reasons to move away from the team he spent almost two decades with.
Newey felt “stale” at Red Bull
Speaking after his Aston Martin move became official on the High-Performance podcast, Newey explained his reasoning for seeking out an opportunity away from Red Bull. He stated that he felt a bit stale at the Milton Keynes outfit, with the team reaching the pinnacle of dominance in F1 and the 65-year-old not having a challenge to produce a faster car.
He also mentioned his differences of opinion with the younger technical talent who “felt that perhaps they needed to show that they could do it on their own”. That is why, Newey decided to give them that opportunity and find a new challenge for himself.
Choosing Aston Martin was a combination of several factors for the British genius. Firstly, he wanted to go to an up-and-coming team rather than another top team. Meanwhile, Aston Martin also offered him a direct stake in the company, making him a shareholder.
