‘I nearly joined Ferrari’ – Adrian Newey recounts tough times at Red bull

Red bull ace Adrian Newey is famous for his unique designs and skills as an aerodynamicist working for Red bull since its inception in Formula 1.

The current Chief Technical Officer of the Red Bull Racing F1 team Adrian Newey was well-praised for the design of the 2022 car. The car was not only almost it had room for more upgrades in the future. This was key as its rivals like Ferrari and Mercedes struggled with bringing upgrades to make the car faster. A big credit for such a design goes to Newey. The British had already worked in designing such cars with the ‘ground effect’ phenomenon.

Regardless, things haven’t always been smooth sailing for red bull and Newey.

After dominating the sport for four straight years, the Milton Keynes-based squad found itself struggling. With the introduction of new turbo hybrid engines in 2014, Red Bull was out of competition. Mercedes made an immensely powerful engine whereas red bull failed to get any competitive engine manufacturer on its side.

Adrian Newey and the outlook of Ferrari

These uncompetitive years almost drove Newey out of the side. The engineer was hugely disappointed with the engine suppliers who were not able to provide an engine good enough. Newey revealed this in a recent interview as he lost motivation:

“Back then I was pretty disillusioned with the whole thing to be honest in as much as obviously I nearly joined Ferrari,”

Newey explained.

“Although I felt happy at Red Bull, and didn’t really want to move teams. The only thing that had pushed me towards even thinking about moving was that we were stuck with an uncompetitive engine.”

“We had a supplier that seemed more interested in the marketing angle. That came from being in F1 than actually being competitive.”

“If you have an engine partner who comes up with a power unit that’s below the competitors. But shows a real desire and a will to fix it and go forward, then you accept it.”

“But one that won’t recognize it’s behind and doesn’t seem to be interested in doing anything about it is altogether more difficult. So it caused me to lose motivation.”

Honda’s ‘drive and motivation’ changed things

At the time Renault was the supplier for red bull. The team was stuck with the manufacturer until 2018 as neither Ferrari nor Mercedes were interested in supplying engines to their main rival.

On the other hand, Honda was also struggling – even worse than Renault. Honda was partnering with McLaren at the time and was having one of its worst times in Formula 1. Then things changed as Honda started supplying engines to Torro Rosso before moving to the main team too.

According to Newey, the coming of Honda changed a few things as the manufacturer had that “drive and motivation” that motivated him too:

“I didn’t want to change teams and that’s where the [Aston Martin Valkyrie] road car project came in.”

“It kept me motivated and occupied for a bit and once we’d signed the deal with Honda, it was clear that we had a partner that might not be quite there at that point, [but] had the drive and motivation to get there, which changed things.”

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