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Newey critical of Red Bull management: 'I was worried about problems, they weren't'
- Ludo van Denderen
Listening to Red Bull Racing's leadership during the second part of last season, it was a coincidence that Adrian Newey' s farewell almost coincided with the start of the decline in sporting performance. Newey, however, does not seem to think this is a coincidence. He even argues that "a lack of experience" of the engineers who took over after his farewell was partly to blame for the decline.
Meanwhile, Newey has been sitting at home for just under a year, "enjoying" his gardening leave after leaving Red Bull. From a distance, he watched the Austrian team struggle almost weekly throughout 2024. "Obviously part of it was McLaren in particular and Ferrari as well developing their cars and doing a very good job of their cars," he tells Auto, Motor und Sport.
But he also argues that in late 2023 Red Bull's car became increasingly difficult to drive, a trend that continued into 2024. "Max could handle that. It didn’t suit him, but he could handle it, Checo couldn’t. So we also started, through ’23, to see more of a difference in performance between the team mates, Max and Checo. That carried into the first part of ’24, but the car was still quick enough to be able to cope with it."
Newey figuratively ran into a wall at Red Bull
Newey, who will soon join Aston Martin, states that he raised the alarm when he saw things were going in the wrong direction at Red Bull. "It’s something I was starting to become concerned about, but not many other people in the organisation seemed to be very concerned about it."
In the end, Verstappen became he 2024 world champion, but the constructors' title proved to be far beyonf Red Bull's reach. As to why the Austrians did not manage to reverse the negative spiral, Newey has an idea. "From what I can see from the outside, but I don’t know, the guys at Red Bull – this is no criticism – I think they just, perhaps through lack of experience, kept going in that same direction. And the problem became more and more acute to the point that even Max found it difficult to drive."
This article was written in collaboration with Norberto Mujica.
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