Red Bull’s chief technical officer Adrian Newey has risked the wrath of Christian Horner after admitting that the disharmony within the team contributed to his departure.
The 65-year-old will leave the team following 19 years of service in which he has played a major role in helping Red Bull win seven drivers’ championship titles.
But a palpable discord between senior figures within the Austrian outfit, which came to the fore during an investigation into team principal Horner, has led Newey to deciding his end his long-running association with the organisation starting from the second quarter of 2025.
Ahead of the 2024 Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, Newey broke his silence on his exit, which was confirmed by the team on Tuesday. And the veteran designer revealed that “events have unfolded” within Red Bull that led him to announce his departure for a well-deserved break from F1.
When asked if he had been considering his exit for some time, Newey told Sky Sports F1 ahead of sprint qualifying in Miami: “If I’m honest, kind of. I guess over the winter, a little bit, and then events have unfolded [within Red Bull].”
“This year, I’m in a very lucky position where I don’t need to work to live. I work because I enjoy it. And as I say, I just felt that now is a good time to to step back and take a bit of a break and take stock of life and go travelling a bit.”
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Horner denial undermined
It had been suggested Newey had left the team amid a power struggle between their majority shareholder, Thai businessman Chalerm Yoovidhya, and their minority owners in Austria, Mark Mateschitz and Oliver Mintzlaff.
There was also a public fallout between Horner and Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, while Helmut Marko’s future came under scrutiny before his future was cleared up in a meeting with Mintzlaff.
And just hours before Newey’s admission, Horner had insisted the veteran’s departure was not related to the unrest within the team: “Absolutely not. This has been coming for some time,” Horner said earlier in the day to the outlet.
“There was discussion pretty much 12 months ago that it might have been the time for Adrian to look at stepping back, so I know it’s been on his mind for some time. It’s something we’ve had to plan for.”
