Adrian Newey announced his Aston Martin move before the Azerbaijan GP. The aero mastermind will be joining the Silverstone-based team in March 2025 as he is still under the Red Bull contract. David Coulthard didn’t seem too pleased with Aston Martin’s grand Newey announcement as he suggested that the press conference and walk around the factory “felt like a bit of a middle finger” to the Red Bull family.
Although Newey has left the F1 operations at Red Bull, he is still developing and finalizing Red Bull’s first hypercar, the RB17. After Coulthard’s comments, Newey’s manager Eddie Jordan detailed how the British designer didn’t breach any agreement while making the Aston Martin announcement.
On the Formula for Success podcast, Jordan said, “Adrian is on gardening leave. He has a date in his contract which was stipulated by me and Red Bull of the 6th of September which was adhered to in every single way.”
“I can promise you that I don’t know anybody who breached that. The best of care was made to respect that and Adrian was fastidious about this.”, he said.
Aston Martin ensured to organize a mega event for announcing Newey’s arrival. Media was present at the new Silverstone factory along with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Following an hour-long interview as a part of the announcement, they took a factory tour with multiple pictures and videos from the same posted online.
Despite Jordan’s clarification, Coulthard — who’s still a part of the Red Bull family — didn’t seem pleased by Newey’s move. Nor was Christian Horner, who slammed Aston Martin for celebrating Newey’s arrival.
Horner deemed Aston Martin’s Newey announcement “premature”
Aston Martin celebrated Newey’s arrival like it was the launch of their new F1 car. However, Newey is arguably the most valuable engineer to ever exist in F1. With a nearly $40 million yearly salary and becoming a shareholder in Aston Martin, Newey deserved a grand welcome.
However, Horner was annoyed at the fact that Aston Martin celebrated Newey’s arrival despite the 65-year-old having a contract with Red Bull till March 2025. While he acknowledged the significant moment for Aston, the Red Bull boss deemed the Silverstone-based outfit’s celebrations as “slightly premature”.
Nonetheless, Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack got back at Horner by explaining how it was a “fantastic” moment for the team and they decided to celebrate it. He stated that the team could use the extra motivation and that the extra media attention would be “good for the team, it’s good for the brand”.
