Mercedes makes major offer to Adrian Newey amidst Ferrari’s strong interest - Reports

Mercedes has made a huge offer to F1's aero wizard Adrian Newey weeks after his decision to leave Red Bull surfaced, according to latest reports. Moreover, it is expected that he will make a decision within the next week.

Red Bull Racing announced earlier in May that Newey was set to leave the team in the first quarter of 2025. He will have spent well over 19 years with the team by then, creating some of the most dominant cars in the history of the sport. His cars are extremely efficient in aerodynamics and hence he is called the "aero wizard" of the sport. Paired with the right engine and driver, Adrian Newey creates history with teams.

This is something that Mercedes direly require. They have failed to design a championship-winning car since 2022 and have not won a race since Brazil in that season. Their current challenger, the W15, was expected to be an improvement over the 2023 car but it has not been very reassuring so far. Statistically, the Brackley-based outfit has had the worst start to a season in over a decade.

Reports from Soy Motor claim that the team has made an offer to Adrian Newey which also includes a share in Mercedes, valued at around €1000 million. But it has not been confirmed whether he will accept the offer. It is said that he will decide by next week after consulting his representative Eddie Jordan, who is a former team owner in Formula 1.

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Why does Mercedes require Adrian Newey's aerodynamic vision?

Mercedes's dominance came to an end during the 2021 season when Red Bull's Max Verstappen emerged victorious. While their cars were still rather competitive throughout the season, there was a considerable drop in their performance heading into 2022 with the new aerodynamic regulations.

The team has not recovered from that loss, while they were the runners-up in 2023, they lost quite a bit of performance again heading into this season. They have been working on introducing new upgrades and as a result, they introduced new wings in Monaco.

Team principal Toto Wolff mentioned this year that they are planning to develop more in Canada and in Spain.

"[The next race] in Montreal is a little bit of an outlier of a track, but we're going to add something there, and we're going to add something for Barcelona - to just try to chip away, bearing in mind there could be also setbacks," Motorsport.com quoted him.

These traits show that Mercedes needs extreme guidance to work on aerodynamics. Their engine still performs well which was apparent when Lando Norris won the Miami GP earlier this season with the McLaren running on the same engine.

Lewis Hamilton is set to leave the team after the end of this season to join Ferrari, who are running competitively this year and are close to championship leader Red Bull Racing.

It is also speculated that Adrian Newey might move to Maranello to work with Ferrari instead.