Red Bull brace for another shock exit as senior member wants to leave the team: Report

After Adrian Newey's exit from the Red Bull F1 team, the world champions may have to prepare themselves for another shock departure from the team.

The 65-year-old announced that he would be leaving the Milton-Keynes outfit in early 2025 and had already stopped his F1 duties to focus on the final phase of the RB17 hypercar project.

The loss of Newey is a big one for the team as they have won every single race and championship with his designed cars. However, as per The Times, the aero wizard's exit might not be the only one that Red Bull would have to deal with in 2024.

As per reports, Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley might also be on his way out from the team amidst the internal power struggles in the outfit. The 56-year-old has been a key part of the organization and has represented the team through thick and thin since 2006.

The Times claimed that Wheatley has "the ambition of becoming team principal and has explored other teams on the starting grid" and was the likely successor to Christian Horner for the Red Bull team principal job had the latter been found guilty of allegations of sexual misconduct earlier in the year.

Red Bull team boss chimes in on Adrian Newey's exit from the team

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner stated that it would be a 'sad day' for the world champions when Adrian Newey leaves the team next year.

Speaking with Sky Sports F1, Horner said:

“He’s been hard at it the last 30 years… seven years with Williams, seven years with McLaren, and he’s done the best part of 20 years with ourselves. Just speaking with him, he’s reached a point where the team’s in great, great shape, we’re performing at such a high level, and he feels that now’s the right for him to step away, take a bit of time out.”

“Most of all, I’ll miss the camaraderie. We’ve shared a lot of highs and lows over the last 18 years, and he’s been sitting next to me on the pit wall throughout that time. We’ll be very sad to see him go, he’s been an immense part of our team over the last pretty much two decades.”

It would be interesting to see if the Austrian team could continue to succeed in the sport with key people leaving the organization so often in the past few years.