Newey and Red Bull split ‘teaser’ drops with exit path scrutinised

Was Adrian Newey and Red Bull split avoidable?

With Williams and McLaren title success already on his CV, Newey departed for Red Bull in 2006, where the F1 design legend added to his legacy, a total of 14 World titles won by the team with cars designed under his watch.

However, it was ahead of the 2024 Miami Grand Prix that Newey’s shock Red Bull departure was announced, his time with their Formula 1 team ending there and then, as he saw out his Red Bull association working on their RB17 hypercar.

And Newey’s Red Bull exit was an uncomfortable experience for Coulthard, their first F1 driver and someone who worked alongside team principal Christian Horner to seal that huge deal to bring Newey to Red Bull.

Appearing on the Red Flags Podcast, Coulthard said: “When I joined Red Bull, having worked with Adrian at Williams, winning car, McLaren, winning car, I was so in the sort of weeds of trying to understand, ‘How do we take this formerly owned by Ford, Jaguar-branded team and bring them to a level where we can actually develop and be a winning team in the future?’ I didn’t even have Adrian on my mind at that time.

“So Christian came with that and said, ‘Look, what about Adrian?’ And then I was like, ‘Well, this is how I think we would start a conversation with Adrian’. So I became involved at that stage, brought the meetings together, and then a deal was done. So that’s bringing it all into a short form.

“The fact that Adrian stayed, what, 16,17, years is, is fantastic. And I think that this will be undoubtedly the longest period of his career with any one team.

“The fact that it came undone the way it did, you know, I’m not enjoying that. I don’t feel good about it.

“I think that a lot of people, when they reflect on decisions made somewhere down the line, they may feel that they haven’t acted in totally the best, the most human way, because it’s very easy for people to go, ‘Well, I don’t like it. I’ve got a clause in my contract. Bugger you, I’m out’.

“Every contract can be broken. But if there’s an open dialog and willingness, and all the rest of it, then you tend to find a way of working these things out.

“So I take the view, having given you that teaser, that I’m not going to elaborate on, that we should celebrate. We celebrate the time Adrian was with the team.”

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And Coulthard would reveal that he had to work hard to convince Dietrich Mateschitz – the late founder of Red Bull Racing – to sign the cheque to bring Newey to the team.

Newey is already back in the Formula 1 paddock after his Red Bull split, having taken on the newly-created managing technical partner role at Aston Martin, while he also received shares in the team as part of the deal.

“And now he’s decided to make a bed in a new venture,” Coulthard continued, “and he’s been given shares in Aston and all those good things.

“And I genuinely, as he’s a friend, I wish him all the best with that journey.

“And Red Bull will get on with the other 1000 people that work for the organisation, because it doesn’t all hinge on one individual, although you would have to say you could argue it did during the [2024] Brazilian Grand Prix, because I don’t know if there’s many drivers who could have done what Max [Verstappen] did.

“But that’s why your chief designer, or your technical officer, and your number one driver are two of the most important investments you’ll ever make.

“And that’s what I said to Mr. Mateschitz when he was alive. At the point where it became clear that Adrian was interested, Mr. Mateschitz was not very happy to pay the amount that was being asked. And I remember saying, ‘You would pay that for a driver and more if he was considered number one driver in the world. I would pay it for what I consider to be the number one designer in the world’.

“He reflected on it, he agreed to it, Adrian joined. The rest is history.”