For the last three years, life at Red Bull was peaceful as they comfortably dominated the entire F1 grid. Ahead of 2024, this changed with Christian Horner, their long-time team principal coming under investigation for inappropriate behavior with a female employee. This led to rumors of a plethora of top figures wanting to leave Red Bull. Now, it seems all but confirmed that Pierre Wache, Adrian Newey’s ‘right-hand man’ and Red Bull’s technical director will join seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari.
Wache’s departure was reported by several sources, with F1 fans on X (formerly Twitter) talking about this move that could potentially hurt Red Bull. On the other hand, Ferrari will be happy to get Wache, a man who contributed so much to Red Bull’s success. But will they get Newey himself?
Adrian Newey is arguably the most brilliant engineer to work in F1 to date. He designed championship-winning cars for Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull. However, he hasn’t worked for the legendary Ferrari outfit, despite coming close in 2014.
Newey also regrets never working with Lewis Hamilton, one of F1’s greatest drivers of all time. If the Briton does follow Wache and Hamilton to Maranello, he will tick both boxes in one go.
Potential Adrian Newey and Lewis Hamilton duo at Ferrari
Hamilton signed a contract with Mercedes in 2023 that was supposed to tie him to Brackley till 2025. Unfortunately for Mercedes, Hamilton decided to pull the plug early and announced he would leave after 2024 ends.
He joins Ferrari, his dream team, on a multi-year contract, but he doesn’t want to go alone. Hamilton has forged strong ties with several Mercedes employees over the years and wants them to join him on his mission in Italy. Mercedes tried and has reportedly put a stop to that.
However, other teams cannot do the same. The future looks bright for Ferrari with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc driving for them. With Wache joining, and several other big names expected to follow, Newey may end up ditching Red Bull for the fabled stable too.
A duo of Hamilton and Newey, two GOATs of F1, sounds unstoppable on paper and could turn out to be the ‘championship-winning formula’ that Ferrari needed.
