Adrian Newey Leaves Red Bull Racing

[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.

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.

I think that's a fair argument but, if the rumors are to be believed, like you believe the story about him and RBR, then his requests on veto power at Ferrari go well beyond the typical tasks of a CTO and included sponsorship deals and so on.

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.

Of course the veto is good against Ferrari as notoriously the only team with politics, no other team, especially in the last year, has had any political fallout, just Ferrari . And the comment about Vasseur being a puppet is out of nowhere so I'll ignore it.

[AR3-GP]

I think that's a fair argument but, if the rumors are to be believed, like you believe the story about him and RBR, then his requests on veto power at Ferrari go well beyond the typical tasks of a CTO and included sponsorship deals and so on.

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.

Of course the veto is good against Ferrari as notoriously the only team with politics, no other team, especially in the last year, has had any political fallout, just Ferrari . And the comment about Vasseur being a puppet is out of nowhere so I'll ignore it.

But that's the point. Red Bull got involved in political nonsense and Newey had no power anymore anywhere, so he left! This has come full circle. The exact situation he wants to avoid repeating at Ferrari or AMR. I'm not saying Ferrari is the only team with political nonsense, but it is definitely one of the teams that is capable of suffering from political nonsense.

I don't mean Vasseur is a puppet in a negative way but even just observing the acquisition of Hamilton, you could see that it was a mission of Ferrari executives, and Vasseur just had to get on board with it. Hamilton is of course a great signing for the team, but it's a sideways step. They already had a team that could build itself around Leclerc, with Sainz being the perfect not quite quick enough wing man. Why destroy this, other than to go on another political mission which was to win with Hamilton. You can build a championship winning team around Hamilton, but you can do the same with Leclerc and they already had Leclerc.

[Vanja #66]

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.

Those are facts mixed with fiction, mate. Newey was placed as CTO since February 2018, making way for Wache as TD and it's now 7th season of this arrangement. Newey almost quit F1 in that period and if it weren't for Valkirye project he'd have done it for sure. But as it happened, this project kept him interested and part of F1 in a reduced capacity. He's not getting younger, so he wasn't going to increase his operational capacity after that... One thing Newey isn't is unreasonable and no one ever mentioned he was annoyed to be out of everyday engineering activities with Wache taking over as TD

As for what drove him away (other than the fact they've already had so much success and it's getting less interesting every year) what we can tell for sure is that this internal dispute was one of the biggest factors. Dispute escalated massively after the article in Dutch press and we know who leaked it...

[PlatinumZealot]

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.

Yes he did is my understanding. From the very begining when joining RedBull. That's why the journalist can say that because it actually was true.

As an agreement to joining RedBull he said listen to me, and you will win. Do not listen to me, you will not win, and I will go elsewhere. Agreed?

[AR3-GP]

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.

Yes he did is my understanding. From the very begining when joining RedBull. That's why the journalist can say that because it actually was true.

As an agreement to joining RedBull he said listen to me, and you will win. Do not listen to me, you will not win, and I will go elsewhere. Agreed?

That is exactly what happened. The RB20 is the first one where they really didn't listen to him, and he left. Adrian is not a complicated person. Simple actions have simple and predictable consequences when it comes to Adrian Newey.

[DDopey]

He did not have veto power.

Yes he did is my understanding. From the very begining when joining RedBull. That's why the journalist can say that because it actually was true.

As an agreement to joining RedBull he said listen to me, and you will win. Do not listen to me, you will not win, and I will go elsewhere. Agreed?

That is exactly what happened. The RB20 is the first one where they really didn't listen to him, and he left. Adrian is not a complicated person. Simple actions have simple and predictable consequences when it comes to Adrian Newey.

I also want a job like that. I would be a sales hero.... When it goes wrong, people say I told them so, when it goes great, it's all because of me.

[AR3-GP]

I also want a job like that. I would be a sales hero.... When it goes wrong, people say I told them so, when it goes great, it's all because of me.

Most people are not Adrian Newey. He has won with every team. People can point to his innovations in every car. This is not coincidence. Yes he also made mistakes, but he never failed to win after cleaning up his mistakes. iirc, Mercedes was also very problematic in that Mclaren so even the MP4-XX (?) after 2000, was not all his fault.

[PlatinumZealot]

Newey has accepted blame on a number of occassions. Remember 2012 when he messed up the suspension concept?

[Luscion]

bbc saying Newey signed for five years at AM for £30m a year

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/arti ... gqd8lz9g1o

[KimiRai]

The first-order reason for Newey’s departure from Red Bull is because he has been singularly unimpressed by the controversy surrounding team principal Christian Horner, who has been accused by a female employee of sexual harassment and coercive, controlling behaviour, which he denies. Two separate internal Red Bull investigations have dismissed the complaint.

But also in the mix have been tensions at the team as to where credit was due for the success of the cars. Horner has tended from time to time in recent years to downplay Newey’s influence, and talk up that of technical director Pierre Wache and aerodynamics chief Enrico Balbo.

Newey pushed back against this inside the team. Last year, after an interview Horner gave in which he addressed this topic, Newey is said to have sent Horner a detailed email explaining all the times he had made crucial interventions. His wife Amanda was less discreet about it - she went on social media to describe the claims as “a load of hogwash”.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/czrxgll23w9o

[Vanja #66]

Never expected someone with so much success to obsess so much about credit, like it's a highschool beauty pageant. It's only natural and a positive thing to publicly credit and promote people under you to boost their morale, self confidence and enable them to eventualy get along on their own...

People should just imagine what it's like to be lower seniority engineer and contribute with an original idea that ends up being an obvious point of interest of all teams and public, only to have every article attribute this idea to the well established man on top, who had nothing to do with it.

[Espresso]

It‘s only Natural to give credit where credit lies. Not to suck up folks and let them walk around air headed. That only brings down the team.

Imho Newey was down to earth. He never claimed to be the best. But fair game to claim your influence if another lies and denies that.

The poison pill is the top brass starting to criticize his own folks publicly….

What is clear, the folks that could improve the car over the weekend with adjustments are gone. That miraculous overnight improvement to put the car in the optimal performance window has left the house…

[catent]

It‘s only Natural to give credit where credit lies. Not to suck up folks and let them walk around air headed. That only brings down the team.

Imho Newey was down to earth. He never claimed to be the best. But fair game to claim your influence if another lies and denies that.

The poison pill is the top brass starting to criticize his own folks publicly….

What is clear, the folks that could improve the car over the weekend with adjustments are gone. That miraculous overnight improvement to put the car in the optimal performance window has left the house…

Did you read the article linked? Can you share where Horner lied and denied Newey’s impact? Horner’s comments seem measured and fair to me.

What I find odd is that, by removing one individual, suddenly the rest of the technical team - which has been present for many years now and has experience working alongside Newey - cannot make the adjustments necessary to get the car working well.

The same car that Newey helped design, and the same car that continued to blow the competition out of the water to start the 2024 season, until Miami.

[AR3-GP]

Never expected someone with so much success to obsess so much about credit, like it's a highschool beauty pageant. It's only natural and a positive thing to publicly credit and promote people under you to boost their morale, self confidence and enable them to eventualy get along on their own...

People should just imagine what it's like to be lower seniority engineer and contribute with an original idea that ends up being an obvious point of interest of all teams and public, only to have every article attribute this idea to the well established man on top, who had nothing to do with it.

Most casual observers and even long time F1 fans give Newey 100% credit for the Red Bull cars. So it's ironic to me that Newey felt that he didn't get credit. Did he read the papers at all? Does he know the hype and lore that surrounds him in the wider F1 community? "Newey rocketship".

[aMessageToCharlie]

Coincidence that RBR removed Newey's floor upgrade in an effort to find the gremlin? I'm starting to run out of popcorn.