Adrian Newey has reportedly decided to leave Red Bull Racing

It is definitely a very eventful start to the season that we are currently experiencing Red Bull Racing behind the scenes. If she suffered only one small hitch on the sporting level with the abandonment of Max Verstappen at the Australian Grand Prix (won by Carlos Sainz), the reigning two-time Manufacturers' champion team is experiencing more turbulence off the track. After the endless soap opera Christian Horner who lasted more than a month, now the dominant team on the grid is on the verge of losing its British genius Adrian Newey.

Present almost since the beginning of the commitment F1 of the brand that gives wings, the British engineer, whose university mastery of ground effect vehicles has greatly helped Red Bull in its transition to the new technical era 2022, would indeed be on the departure. According to several usually very reliable publications from different geographical backgrounds, the 65-year-old man even informed his management of his desire to leave the team, despite a contract renewed last year.

Adrian Newey, heading to Ferrari?

According to the BBC, the Red Bull chief designer's new engagement runs until 2025, but he would like to be able to negotiate his departure at the end of the season, aware that a period of forced inactivity in F1 would await him. According to the Dutch press, the influence held by Adrian Newey in recent years in Formula 1 had been considerably reduced, the Briton having even admitted in a recent interview that he no longer devoted more than 50% of his time to F1, he who has gotten into the habit of working in recent years on road-legal supercars. The Frenchman Pierre Waché having taken over as technical director.

Are his initial desires to be explained precisely by a desire to return to the center of the game? The reasons behind his decision have not really leaked, but it is difficult not to make a link with the weakening of the team following the Horner affair and all the political turmoil which followed, with the quarrels Horner-Jos Verstappen, including the big man Helmut Marko. For now, peaceful co-existence has been decreed internally in everyone's interest, but Newey's possible departure could be the first card in the castle to collapse, leading to a possible chain reaction in the process, while Max Verstappen never guaranteed 100% that he would stay at Red Bull beyond 2025, despite a contract running until 2028.

Regarding Adrian Newey, persistent rumors in recent weeks have reported that a “big offer” had been made to him by Aston Martin and by Lawrence Stroll. Team principal Mike Krack denied this, which is obviously not gospel (on the contrary, in fact!). The other increasingly insistent sound of the bell would take the native of Colchester to Italy, towards Maranello, where Frédéric Vasseur is in the process of fundamentally changing the team. Adrian Newey himself spoke in an interview last September of his regrets at never having worked with Hamilton. To remedy this, he would simply need to put on the red tunic in 2025 or 2026!

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