Adrian Newey’s career, which has spanned more than three decades and seen him win a total of 25 Championships for three different teams, has left him in the privileged position of not needing to work for money. Therefore, when he left Red Bull last year, he thought about calling it quits.
However, his passion for designing cars was such that he could not think of staying away from F1 for long ultimately. He did take some time to assess his options, and unsurprisingly, multiple teams targeted his signature. In the end, he settled for Aston Martin.
“It could have been simply retiring and sitting on a beach,” Newey replied when asked on the ams.F1 podcast. The other options he had were to work for one of the OEMs and road cars or stay in racing.
First, he thought he decided that he would stay in the world of motorsports. Then, he said to himself, “might as well stay in Formula 1”.
Designing race cars is all Newey wanted to do since he was 10 years old. It was his childhood passion, and he lived for new challenges, which is why he couldn’t have made a better call than to choose Aston Martin as his new destination.
At the Silverstone-based outfit, the 66-year-old will not only help design the team’s 2026 challenger but also be involved in other projects, including the designing of hypercars and supercars, just like he did when he was at Red Bull.
What Aston Martin is set to offer Newey once his gardening leave ends in March will be quite similar to his daily responsibilities at the Milton Keynes squad. This raises the question—why did he leave Red Bull in the first place?
Why did Newey leave Red Bull?
As Newey explained in the interview, his decision to join Aston Martin was not about money. He has plenty. Instead, it was to take on a new challenge and help another team other than Red Bull achieve success, just like he did when he joined the Austrian team in 2005.
Adrian Newey’s stats speak for themselves #F1 pic.twitter.com/WiVadINeOr
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 10, 2024
As for why he left Red Bull last year, Newey revealed that he felt “a little bit tired” at the time. While this was the reason he gave to the media, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko stated in an interview with ORF that Newey’s departure had more to do with the turmoil the Milton Keynes-based outfit experienced last year.
Marko revealed that with the passing of Red Bull GmbH founder Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022, followed by the “inappropriate behavior” saga involving team principal Christian Horner last year, there was a lot of uncertainty that Newey may have wanted to distance himself from. Meanwhile, other reports claimed that Newey felt “isolated” due to an internal power struggle that emerged within Red Bull’s camp last year.
Horner reportedly sought more control over the team, while Marko and Verstappen’s father Jos wanted the British boss to leave. Since these are just reports, the sheer volume of speculation surrounding Red Bull’s internal dynamics could have contributed to Newey’s decision to depart.
