Newey has no plans to leave Red Bull F1

Legendary Red Bull designer Adrian Newey has said he has no plans to retire from Formula One anytime soon.

Newey, who celebrates his 65th birthday on Boxing Day, has turned Red Bull into a championship machine since joining in 2006. He initially made his name in F1 through his first role as technical director at Leighton House, before moving on to Williams and McLaren, where he built cars that won a total of six constructors’ and six drivers’ titles.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner took it from McLaren with the Red Bull Newey helmet car design and paraded it at the site between 2010 and 2013 when the speakers were blown and the ground effect cars were reintroduced . But while Newey is less involved in day-to-day design work than before and is free to pursue other projects, he remains an important asset and has no plans to leave Formula 1 after taking over the job at the start of this year. A new contract was signed. .

Asked by Motorsport.com if he still enjoys working for Red Bull, he replied: “Of course.” “When I joined Williams and McLaren, they were two great teams that had won races and championships before I came, so we needed very little in terms of infrastructure, we just hope to improve the design a little bit alongside.

“And the reason I joined Red Bull was because I was going through a career crisis at the time, but I wanted to be involved in the development of the team from the beginning. “From that perspective, how I developed the team with Christian and Helmut (Marco) in the first place, why would I want to leave?”

According to Newey, the only point he considered leaving was when Mercedes became the dominant force in 2014 with its new turbo-hybrid engines and Red Bull stuck with its uncompetitive Renault engines.

“We only got closer in 2014, but for completely different reasons,” he explains. It’s very simple. There was a power unit that wasn’t working at the time, of course it happens.

“And there doesn’t seem to be much willingness on the part of the top manufacturers to invest in changing that, not in the [factory] employees. “That’s why it’s a bit stressful. As we all know, to win a championship you have to have three key elements: driver, chassis and engine. If one of those elements is weak, you will win.”