Formula 1: Red Bull announces that lead car designer Adrian Newey will leave in early 2025
Red Bull and Max Verstappen have been absolutely dominant since F1 car rules changed ahead of the 2022 season
Adrian Newey will officially leave Red Bull Racing at the start of 2025.
Red Bull announced Newey’s exit on Wednesday, days after reports emerged that the car designer was preparing to leave the team. Newey, Red Bull’s Chief Technical Officer, has been with the team since 2006 and played a massive role in the design of Red Bull’s current car. Max Verstappen has absolutely dominated Formula 1 since a significant car regulation change before the 2022 season and won 19 of 22 races in 2023. Only one race all season last year was won by a non-Red Bull driver.
“Ever since I was a young boy, I wanted to be a designer of faster cars,” Newey said in a statement. “My dream was to be an engineer in Formula 1, and I’ve been lucky enough to make that dream a reality. For almost two decades it has been my great honor to have played a key role in Red Bull Racing’s progress from upstart newcomer to multiple title-winning team.”
Per a BBC report last week, Newey’s exit came “in the wake of the controversy involving allegations about team principal Christian Horner.” The longtime team principal was accused of inappropriate behavior by a female team employee in early 2024, but her complaint against Horner was dismissed before the season began.
“All of our greatest moments from the past 20 years have come with Adrian’s hand on the technical tiller,” Horner said in a statement. “His vision and brilliance have helped us to 13 titles in 20 seasons. His exceptional ability to conceptualize beyond F1 and bring wider inspiration to bear on the design of Grand Prix cars, 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 Racing become a greater force than I think even the late [CEO] Dietrich Mateschitz might have imagined.”
Ferrari has been tabbed as the early favorite for Newey’s services after he leaves Red Bull, with Aston Martin also reportedly interested. Whoever ends up hiring Newey next will be able to have him in house as it develops its 2026 car. F1 regulations are significantly changing again in two seasons.
However, Newey’s early 2025 exit means that his impact on any 2025 developments for his new team will likely be minimal. And Red Bull is probably just fine with that. With the current car platform set to stay in place for next season, Red Bull should continue its role as top team on the grid through the next 20 months.
Before joining Red Bull, Newey worked at Williams and McLaren. Both teams won championships during his tenure there, and his Williams car design in the 1990s was hailed as a modern technical marvel.
