Adrian Newey sensed Red Bull ‘do it on their own’ desire as Aston Martin switch looms

Adrian Newey said he sensed the need at Red Bull to prove they can do it without him, prompting him to seek a “new challenge”.

And that is what the F1 design guru has done, agreeing a move to Aston Martin where he will become managing technical partner, also taking on shares in the team. That switch is effective as of March 2025 as Newey sees out his Red Bull tenure working on the RB17 hypercar.

Adrian Newey felt Red Bull ‘needed to show they could do it on their own’

Having joined the team in 2006, Newey and Red Bull have achieved immense success, the team since claiming seven Drivers’ and six Constructors’ Championship titles. For Newey, that took his tally up to 25 titles won with his designs.

But, Newey believes that offers a glimpse into an urge growing among Red Bull personnel, one that meant they wanted to show that they could stand on their own two feet without Newey there.

Asked on the High Performance Podcast what made him come to this decision to leave Red Bull for Aston Martin, Newey replied: “I suppose I find that there comes a point where I feel as if I need new challenges.

“The team’s reached a level of a good level of maturity. It’s a very mature engineering organisation, as well as the rest of the team. So in a way, I’ve kind of done my bit and I started to feel as if we’re going a little bit stale.

“I think the guys also felt, perhaps, that they needed to show that they could do it on their own. So I thought, ‘Well, okay, let’s give them the chance and give myself a new challenge.'”

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Newey will be 66 by the point he joins Aston Martin, his career – which has seen him design title-winning machinery for Williams, McLaren and Red Bull – stretching on longer than he anticipated.

So, at this point, it is a case of balancing continuing to do what he loves with his private life.

“I think if I go back even 15 years, certainly 20 years, and say, ‘Would I want to be at work beyond 60?’ Probably not. Would I want to be at work beyond 65? Absolutely not,” Newey admitted.

“But then you get there, and there’s various things. First of all, maybe, I don’t know, maybe I’m guilty of it defining me too much, and I worry about what I’d do if I didn’t do that. But I don’t think that’s really the thing in my case. It’s more that I enjoy the challenge, have loved this, the career I’ve always dreamt of from a little kid, been lucky enough to achieve it. Still enjoy it.

“It’s just trying to get that sort of balance right of it not being all-consuming because Formula 1 can be all-consuming, and with that consumption, of course, comes compromises, particularly family life and friends and so on and so forth. And that’s the difficult bit.”

Newey’s F1 title tally could increase to 27 in F1 2024, with Max Verstappen leading the Drivers’ Championship by 52 points over McLaren’s Lando Norris, while Red Bull are bidding to reclaim the Constructors’ Championship lead from McLaren, who have opened up a 41-point buffer.

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