Adrian Newey looks back on his departure from Red Bull and suggests that he could not reconcile working for the Bulls with himself.
How broken was the relationship between Adrian Newey and his ex-employer Red Bull really? New statements by the 66-year-old at least suggest that he no longer wanted to work for the Bulls under any circumstances.
In an interview with auto motor und sport, Newey, who will start working for Aston Martin in March, emphasizes: “I think if you had asked me a year ago whether I would leave Red Bull and start again now, I would have said, ‘No, you’re crazy’.”
“But for various reasons, I felt that I would not be true to myself if I stayed with Red Bull. So the first difficult decision was whether or not to stay with Red Bull,” said Newey.
The Brit does not go into detail, but his statement suggests that something must have changed in the internal situation of the team that was so serious that he no longer wanted to stay in Milton Keynes.
“So I obviously came to the conclusion that, if I’m honest with myself, I’m not able to [continue working for Red Bull],” said Newey. Last year, there were already rumors that his departure had been preceded by a falling out with team principal Christian Horner.
And Helmut Marko later explained on ORF that the death of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz and the subsequent reorganization of the Red Bull Group could have been one reason “why [Newey] decided to look for a new challenge.”
Newey: Shouldn’t have had to continue working
“Once I made that decision [to leave Red Bull], it was a question of what to do next,” explains Newey, who stresses that he had no need “financially” to move to another Formula One team.
“So I could have just retired and sat on the beach, or I could have done something completely different, the America’s Cup, or maybe worked on road vehicles for one of the manufacturers,” said Newey.
But there was always the option to stay in racing. “And if I wanted to stay in racing, I might as well stay in F1, assuming they wanted me,” explains Newey, who had no shortage of interested parties.
Ultimately, he therefore decided not to retire yet, because otherwise he would probably have got “bored”. “So if I wanted to continue working, why not do what I’ve always wanted to do and what I enjoyed,” said Newey.
He just didn’t want to do it at Red Bull anymore.
