Adrian Newey Leaves Red Bull Racing

[Zynerji]

Joe Saward said nobody else actually wanted Newey for what his demands were. His demands are basically that he doesn't want to work day to day, but he has veto power over anything he doesn't like with the car. Plus big money

That would be a no for me. If you are invested in the team and want veto, you work with us daily.

You can’t come in with zero context and veto left and right and walk out, need to have delivery responsibility as well and put some skin in the game.

Sounds like the Rory Byrne - Ferrari callbacks...

[PlatinumZealot]

Joe Saward said nobody else actually wanted Newey for what his demands were. His demands are basically that he doesn't want to work day to day, but he has veto power over anything he doesn't like with the car. Plus big money

That would be a no for me. If you are invested in the team and want veto, you work with us daily.

You can’t come in with zero context and veto left and right and walk out, need to have delivery responsibility as well and put some skin in the game.

Newey is a star. He attracts planets of money and talent!!
He is a great investment. Probably better return than any other major equipment.

[dialtone]

Joe Saward said nobody else actually wanted Newey for what his demands were. His demands are basically that he doesn't want to work day to day, but he has veto power over anything he doesn't like with the car. Plus big money

That would be a no for me. If you are invested in the team and want veto, you work with us daily.

You can’t come in with zero context and veto left and right and walk out, need to have delivery responsibility as well and put some skin in the game.

Newey is a star. He attracts planets of money and talent!!
He is a great investment. Probably better return than any other major equipment.

Doesn’t matter honestly. I’ve worked with plenty of great engineers, and great engineers that were asses.

I tried both sides plenty of times and the engineer that rubs people wrong is never worth it, especially if they insist on working under more difficult conditions.

Internally it becomes some sort of yes men race to not be vetoed and be promoted and other similar stuff, for a guy that will barely have time to chat with you weekly about your ideas and projects but will still veto them if he doesn’t like them.

Nah, don’t care what he brings, that’s not team spirit. GOAT but not like that.

It’s also really strange to me that someone like him would need veto power… at his level his influence should be insane, his role is to drive creativity, not be right all the time. Honestly this is a better outcome if those stories are true.

[Chuckjr]

Much better/wiser investment than the fortune Ferrari spent on Lewis, and an engineer can make a car so good even Lance could win in it. Just consider Vettel’s record or Lewis. Drivers are a slave to the potential of the car provided, and no driver can polish a turd. Well done Aston. Wise investment.

[ispano6]

That would be a no for me. If you are invested in the team and want veto, you work with us daily.

You can’t come in with zero context and veto left and right and walk out, need to have delivery responsibility as well and put some skin in the game.

Newey is a star. He attracts planets of money and talent!!
He is a great investment. Probably better return than any other major equipment.

Doesn’t matter honestly. I’ve worked with plenty of great engineers, and great engineers that were asses.

I tried both sides plenty of times and the engineer that rubs people wrong is never worth it, especially if they insist on working under more difficult conditions.

Internally it becomes some sort of yes men race to not be vetoed and be promoted and other similar stuff, for a guy that will barely have time to chat with you weekly about your ideas and projects but will still veto them if he doesn’t like them.

Nah, don’t care what he brings, that’s not team spirit. GOAT but not like that.

It’s also really strange to me that someone like him would need veto power… at his level his influence should be insane, his role is to drive creativity, not be right all the time. Honestly this is a better outcome if those stories are true.

Sometimes it's one lone engineer carrying the weight and setting the direction because that individual is the only one who sees the vision forward. To such people who are genius or gifted engineers, they can turn into a**holes when put under unreasonable pressure and expectations with limited resources or consideration for the well-being of the engineer. At some point a genius doesn't want to be surrounded by knuckle-heads.

[Big Tea]

Joe Saward said nobody else actually wanted Newey for what his demands were. His demands are basically that he doesn't want to work day to day, but he has veto power over anything he doesn't like with the car. Plus big money

That would be a no for me. If you are invested in the team and want veto, you work with us daily.

You can’t come in with zero context and veto left and right and walk out, need to have delivery responsibility as well and put some skin in the game.

Newey is a star. He attracts planets of money and talent!!
He is a great investment. Probably better return than any other major equipment.

That's a very good point I had not considered. That of him being a magnet to other resources just by being there.
This probably stretches right across the field from drivers and engineers through to sponsors.

More than just a top designer in his own right he is a legend that attracts the eye, and the purse

[Farnborough]

That would be a no for me. If you are invested in the team and want veto, you work with us daily.

You can’t come in with zero context and veto left and right and walk out, need to have delivery responsibility as well and put some skin in the game.

Newey is a star. He attracts planets of money and talent!!
He is a great investment. Probably better return than any other major equipment.

That's a very good point I had not considered. That of him being a magnet to other resources just by being there.
This probably stretches right across the field from drivers and engineers through to sponsors.

More than just a top designer in his own right he is a legend that attracts the eye, and the purse

The basic metric at which most commercial activities are predicted "what is the future potential? " start up, big business all .... what does the future hold for an investor, an employee, shareholder etc etc.

Hypothetical case, AN does go to AM, they along with Honda dominate coming years of championship etc, it then excludes anyone that hasn't got that combo.

We all hope there's good distribution of competition through this sport to make it interesting, Stroll is trying to exclude others, naturally, and they all have to counter that.

[dialtone]

Sometimes it's one lone engineer carrying the weight and setting the direction because that individual is the only one who sees the vision forward. To such people who are genius or gifted engineers, they can turn into a**holes when put under unreasonable pressure and expectations with limited resources or consideration for the well-being of the engineer. At some point a genius doesn't want to be surrounded by knuckle-heads.

I don't know what a team like Aston Martin has done already to Newey to deserve what you ascribe to being put under unreasonable pressure. It's like entering a relationship after a breakup and you come up with a set of inflexible rules to defend yourself from the past events. You just ruin the new relationship.

As an aside, while Newey is proven GOAT working within a team with delivery responsibilities and daily engagement, he's not proven GOAT working as a consultant, part time, remotely with veto power, and of course he brings value no matter what, but is it worth it in the end?

[AR3-GP]

As an aside, while Newey is proven GOAT working within a team with delivery responsibilities and daily engagement, he's not proven GOAT working as a consultant, part time, remotely with veto power,

this is what he was doing at Red Bull though. It worked at Red bull because Horner let him do whatever he wanted. Newey reportedly spends a lot of time in South Africa with his wife.

[dialtone]

As an aside, while Newey is proven GOAT working within a team with delivery responsibilities and daily engagement, he's not proven GOAT working as a consultant, part time, remotely with veto power,

this is what he was doing at Red Bull though. It worked at Red bull because Horner let him do whatever he wanted. Newey reportedly spends a lot of time in South Africa with his wife.

He did not have veto power.

[AR3-GP]

As an aside, while Newey is proven GOAT working within a team with delivery responsibilities and daily engagement, he's not proven GOAT working as a consultant, part time, remotely with veto power,

this is what he was doing at Red Bull though. It worked at Red bull because Horner let him do whatever he wanted. Newey reportedly spends a lot of time in South Africa with his wife.

He did not have veto power.

He did until recently. Newey made Red Bull into his image since 2006 or whatever it was. He had his discliples within the team. Part of why he left Red Bull is that Horner started to phase his control out by giving Wache more authority. That culminated in this abomination of a car known as the RB20.

[dialtone]

this is what he was doing at Red Bull though. It worked at Red bull because Horner let him do whatever he wanted. Newey reportedly spends a lot of time in South Africa with his wife.

He did not have veto power.

He did until recently (which is why he left, Horner undermined him with Wache).

Do you have a source for the veto? I think it's important because the engagement you get is different, and while CH is not high on my favorites list, he's also pretty committed to winning so if changes were made in execution I'd be interested to know the context of it.

[AR3-GP]

He did not have veto power.

He did until recently (which is why he left, Horner undermined him with Wache).

Do you have a source for the veto? I think it's important because the engagement you get is different, and while CH is not high on my favorites list, he's also pretty committed to winning so if changes were made in execution I'd be interested to know the context of it.

I think this is a bit of semantics. You aren't going to find a piece of paper in the news saying Adrian Newey has a veto but his powers at Red Bull since 2006 were to this extent. It is only recently when his influence was rejected that he left the team. If Adrian did have this control at Red Bull, he would have left long ago.

The detail is in the stories that have been published and the change of technical structure. Pierre Wache was promoted to Technical director in 2018 and reporting to Newey. Gradually between 2018 and 2024 Wache gained more authority to the point that the RB20 was developed against Newey's wishes. These kinds of stories never happened before.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/289400/a ... -rb20.html

[dialtone]

I think this is a bit of semantics. You aren't going to find a piece of paper in the news saying Adrian Newey has a veto but his powers at Red Bull since 2006 were to this extent. His job title said so. It is only recently when his influence was rejected that he left the team.

I don't think it's semantics, but it is a fine line. When you are CTO you are invested with certain power and influence, but not the power to have everyone do what you want because you think it. I think this tension is good because it forces you as a CTO to engage which makes you a better CTO, as ultimately you are still high up in the chain and would benefit from lower level feedback.

If you can just tell people what to do, or veto their work, what's your incentive to invest time to gather lower level feedback? I think this fundamentally changes the dynamic.

People will generally do what you want as a CTO, so what could possibly have prompted the need to have veto power in the next contract? We are talking about Adrian fricking Newey, and he's in need of veto power otherwise people wouldn't listen when they are ready to pay him 100mil on the nose?

The detail is in the stories that have been published and the change of technical structure. Pierre Wache was promoted to Technical director in 2018 and reporting to Newey. Gradually between 2018 and 2024 Wache gained more authority to the point that the RB20 was developed against Newey's wishes.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/289400/a ... -rb20.html

Yes I remember those articles, but that's not context, it's just one side of the story at best, the team wouldn't comment on it for various reasons including legal ones. Do you think it's realistic that somehow one day Horner decided that Newey needed to be ignored in favor of Wache? What was Horner's thought process there? Why did it happen?

[AR3-GP]

I think this is a bit of semantics. You aren't going to find a piece of paper in the news saying Adrian Newey has a veto but his powers at Red Bull since 2006 were to this extent. His job title said so. It is only recently when his influence was rejected that he left the team.

I don't think it's semantics, but it is a fine line. When you are CTO you are invested with certain power and influence, but not the power to have everyone do what you want because you think it. I think this tension is good because it forces you as a CTO to engage which makes you a better CTO, as ultimately you are still high up in the chain and would benefit from lower level feedback.

If you can just tell people what to do, or veto their work, what's your incentive to invest time to gather lower level feedback? I think this fundamentally changes the dynamic.

I think people are turning the veto power into a big boogeyman. Ferrari had veto rights to F1 regulations changes and they never exercised them willy nilly or simply to irritate the other teams. Newey simply wanted assurances about the most important matters. It's not that he would just veto people willy nilly in the day to day just to be annoying and high on power tripping.

As far as I see, the veto would have protected Ferrari from the political machinations of Ferrari executives. Even Vasseur is still a puppet to Vigna and Elkann.