Red Bull have confirmed their design chief Adrian Newey will leave the team in early 2025.
Newey, regarded as the greatest designer in the history of Formula 1, told Red Bull last week he wanted to leave in the wake of the controversy involving allegations about team principal Christian Horner.
The 65-year-old’s next team has not been decided but Ferrari are hot favourites to sign him. Horner said Newey leaves Red Bull “a true legend” and credits him for “all of our greatest moments from the past 20 years”.
“His exceptional ability to conceptualise beyond F1, his remarkable talent for embracing change and finding the most rewarding areas of the rules to focus on, and his relentless will to win have helped Red Bull become a greater force than even the late Dietrich Mateschitz might have imagined,” Horner said.
Sources close to the situation have told BBC Sport there will be time for Newey to have a major impact on the gestation of a 2026 car design for whichever team he decides to join. Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport reported on Wednesday that Newey had met Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur in London to discuss a potential deal.
Newey has been at Red Bull since 2005 and has overseen two dominant eras with the team – from 2010-14 when they won four consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ titles with Sebastian Vettel and the current era with Max Verstappen.
Last year, Verstappen and Red Bull produced the most dominant season in F1 history, the Dutchman winning 19 of the 22 races and the team all but one.
They look on course for a similar performance after winning four of the first five races this season. Newey previously had multiple championship-winning success at both Williams and McLaren.
The official announcement of Newey’s departure was not expected to happen on Wednesday out of respect to the memory of Ayrton Senna – it is the 30th anniversary of the death of the great Brazilian while driving a Williams that Newey designed in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
But events moved fast overnight after news of Newey’s departure was reported by BBC Sport on Tuesday, insiders say. Newey said: “For almost two decades it has been my great honour to have played a key role in Red Bull Racing’s progress from upstart newcomer to multiple title-winning team.
“However, I feel now is an opportune moment to hand that baton over to others and to seek new challenges for myself.” Red Bull’s statement said Newey would “continue to attend specific races to support the team trackside to the end of the 2024 season”, with the first of these the Miami Grand Prix this weekend.
Newey said he would spend the rest of his remaining time with Red Bull focusing on completing the forthcoming RB17 super-car. He also revealed his departure had been handled by former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan, who Newey described as his “close friend and manager”.
Jordan and Newey have succeeded in pulling off a major coup in extricating the designer from a contract that ran to the end of 2025 and included a 12-month “non-compete” clause that should have meant he was not available to any other team until 2027 at the earliest.
