Adrian Newey’s manager Eddie Jordan has hinted that the F1 design guru was left “upset” by developments at Red Bull before taking the decision to leave for Aston Martin.
Newey announced earlier this month that he will join Aston Martin in F1 2025, with the 65-year-old appointed to the role of managing technical partner.
Why did Adrian Newey decide to leave Red Bull? Eddie Jordan weighs in
It came after the F1 legend announced his decision to leave Red Bull in May, having masterminded the team’s success with the likes of Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen over the last two decades.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at his Aston Martin unveiling, Newey revealed that he “needed a new challenge” and confirmed that he made up his mind to leave Red Bull during the Japanese Grand Prix weekend in April.
Newey’s travel plans for the rest of the F1 2024 season have since changed, with PlanetF1.com revealing last week that he is to no longer attend races with Red Bull.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner issued a cool response to Aston Martin’s presentation of Newey at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, claiming that “Adrian has always tended to do his own thing.”
Horner went on to add that Aston Martin have “celebrated” the signing of Newey “potentially slightly prematurely, before he’s finished his contract with Red Bull Racing.”
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Jordan, the former F1 team owner, negotiated the terms of Newey’s Red Bull exit in May, crucially arranging for him to sidestep the period of gardening leave commonplace in staff contracts to allow him to start work with Aston Martin as soon as next year.
With Newey previously stating that leaving Red Bull would be akin to “walking out on your family”, Jordan hinted that his client had been left frustrated by developments at the team over the last 12 months.
Asked to pinpoint why Newey’s outlook on Red Bull changed, Jordan told the Formula For Success podcast: “Who’s to know?
“Maybe he saw something a couple of months, a year ago, that was either upsetting him, or some road of technical belief as to where the team should go that he didn’t agree with, which certainly hasn’t come out now.
“But when you see what’s happening with Max [Verstappen], who’s to say that there was something happening in the car, in the team, that Adrian wasn’t happy with?
“I don’t know the answer.”
Newey’s comments come after suggestions that Newey objected to the development path pursued by Red Bull for F1 2024 under the leadership of technical director Pierre Waché.
Last winter, Newey’s wife Amanda responded to Horner’s remarks that Red Bull’s technical structure was no longer reliant on her husband as “a load of hogwash.”
Mrs Newey also took exception to the suggestion that last year’s RB19, the most successful car in F1 history, was designed by Waché, writing on Twitter: “Absolute b*****s.”
With Red Bull fading alarmingly after a strong start to F1 2024 campaign, failing to win a race since the Spanish Grand Prix on June 23, Newey distanced himself from the team’s struggles during a recent podcast appearance, insisting he cannot explain why the team is “less competitive” now as he is “not involved.”
Red Bull’s winless run extended to seven races in Baku last weekend as the team lost the lead of the Constructors’ Championship for the first time since May 2022, with McLaren holding a 20-point lead with seven races remaining.
Put to him by co-host David Coulthard that the current Red Bull is a Newey-designed car, Jordan responded: “But, David, sorry, the design and the delivery of the current McLaren car, it’s one particular person.
“It hasn’t changed, it’s still the same person [designing it] now it’s leading and winning races. When it was at the back [in early 2023], it was the same car.
“You and I know that development takes so many finite, little areas and, as a team boss, I would have to listen every single day to both engineers and aerodynamicists, different types of construction in terms of the tyres, how they would want the car to be set up to be done, and so it’s never easy.
“I have some some belief that we all say the car is designed by somebody. And I know Adrian will have designed the car, but in recent times he wasn’t there to see what was in his head was going to evolve into making this a great car.
“The McLaren has turned out to be a great car.
“After the first six races or so at Red Bull, we would have said: ‘My God, this is an unbelievable car.’ But it’s not an unbelievable car now.
“I believe that Checo [has] stepped up to the plate and I think that Checo is [reflective of] the speed of that car.
“We know how great Max is, so let us not be unkind to the team or Max or Checo.
“That’s where [Red Bull] are with that car.”
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