Adrian Newey pulls back the curtain on why he had to leave Red Bull in 2024

Aston Martin's Technical Managing Partner, Adrian Newey, claimed that he would not have been "true" to himself if he had stayed at Red Bull. The aero wizard was one of the major personnel behind the team's success in the sport ever since he joined them in 2006.

With Newey's designs, the Austrian team won eight Driver's and seven Constructors' Championships and had two separate dominant periods with the Milton-Keynes outfit, 2010-13 and 2022-24.

However, Newey's exit from Red Bull in early May last year amid the power struggle caught everyone by surprise, as the world champions made another fast start last year. In his interview with Auto Motor und Sport, Newey explained the reason behind his exit from Red Bull and said:

"I think if you'd said to me 12 months ago, would I be leaving Red Bull and then now ultimately starting again, I'd have said 'No, you're crazy'. But for various reasons, I felt I wouldn't be true to myself if I stayed at Red Bull. So the first difficult decision was exactly that: do I stay or not at Red Bull? So I obviously came to conclusion that, in being honest to myself, I couldn't."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner previously mentioned that reportedly, Adrian Newey was not too involved in designing the recent iterations of the 2023 and 2024 cars. Following his departure, Red Bull lost its hold over the constructors' title to McLaren and finished in P3 behind Ferrari, while Max Verstappen retained his title.

Adrian Newey chimes in on Red Bull RB20 losing pace after his exit

Adrian Newey believed that the driveability of the Red Bull cars had worsened in the latter stages of the 2023 season but reached its limit in 2024. As quoted by the aforementioned source, Aston Martin spoke about the visible difference in performance between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez and their abilities to drive around the issues of the car.

Newey reflected:

"Already through the very last stages of '23, the car was starting to become more difficult to drive. Of course that suited Max – he could handle that, if you like. It didn't suit him, but he could handle it. Checo couldn't. It's something I was starting to become concerned about, but not many other people in the organization seemed to be very concerned about it.

"And from what I can see from the outside, but I don't know… The guys at Red Bull, this is no criticism, but I think they just – perhaps through lack of experience – kept going in that same direction."

Adrian Newey will begin his tenure with the Silverstone-based outfit on March 1 and focus his energies on developing the 2026 car for the new engine regulations.