Chief technical officer Adrian Newey has refused to commit to seeing out his engineering career with Red Bull. The F1 mastermind has been courted by Ferrari on multiple occasions, and a recent chat with David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan revealed just how hard the Prancing Horse have tried to bring him in.
Newey has a wealth of F1 experience, taking on senior roles as far back as the late 1980s. He ended an eight-year stay at McLaren to sign with Red Bull in 2006, penning a lucrative agreement believed to be worth multiple millions per season.
The 64-year-old’s design expertise has returned to prominence since 2021, with Max Verstappen winning each of the last three Drivers’ Championships for Red Bull. This year was particularly dominant for the team, who won 21 out of the 22 Grands Prix on offer.
Ferrari, who are without a team title since 2008, have repeatedly tried to bring Newey on board. Speaking on the Formula for Success podcast, the Red Bull man claimed that it would take a lot for him to ditch his current set-up, while maintaining a ‘never say never’ approach.
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“Ferrari is this magic brand that I suppose, in all honesty, probably everybody in motor racing is always fascinated by and tempted to join if there’s the opportunity,” he said. “And I’ve been approached and come close three times now.
“It’s an amazing brand. It has had all this mystique about it. It’s effectively the Italian national team, with all the pros and cons that come with that.
Although most of Newey’s work unfolds behind the scenes, he is broadly deemed to be just as important to the team’s success as those who appear in front of the cameras. It therefore came as a relief to fans of Verstappen when Newey signed a new deal earlier this year.
The specifics of the arrangement have been kept under wraps, but team principal Christian Horner confirmed that it would keep the F1 veteran in house for the ‘longer term’.
