“The meeting culture can be time wasting” - Red Bull F1 wizard opens up about the work culture of their team 

Red Bull Racing Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey, has given an insight into the kind of work culture that has helped establish the team as one of the strongest on the Formula 1 grid.

The Red Bull team came into existence when they purchased the Jaguar Racing team in 2004 and first took part in F1 in 2005. Since then, they have won the Constructors' Championship five times (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2022) and the Drivers' Championship six times (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2021, 2022).

Newey joined Red Bull in 2006 and has played an instrumental role in the team's success, as every car that brought success to the Milton Keynes outfit was designed by the Englishman.

In the latest episode of the Talking Bulls podcast, he explained the kind of work culture that's prevalent at Red Bull, saying:

"We try to run a very flat structure. Like any organization, you have to have a pyramid sort of layers. But certainly, within the engineering department, [we] try to encourage a very flat structure where we’re quite careful with the seating plans to make sure that people who need to communicate with each other are sitting as close as possible."

Newey, whose car designs have 198 Grands Prix to date, also stated that he was not a fan of having multiple meetings or virtual communication between team members. He explained:

"[We] try to minimize the number of meetings. The meeting culture can just be such a big time-wasting culture. [We] equally try to encourage people to talk, not just to email each other. The coffee shop’s another way of doing that. And just try to make sure that everybody talks to each other, keeps each other informed as much as possible."

He added:

"The engineering in terms of the progress of the cars is ideas generated. So it's about trying to have a culture that people feel comfortable coming up with ideas and everybody embracing them, having a look at them, chasing them through.

"And if they, at some point, it’s obvious that they're not going to bear fruit, make the car quicker, then you have to drop them. If they are, then fantastic and you keep developing them. That's really the way we try to operate."

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"We just had a similar outlook on things" - Red Bull boss Christian Horner on his relationship with Adrian Newey

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has stated that he shares an impeccable friendship, beyond their professional relationship, with Adrian Newey.

Horner recalled connecting with Newey right from the get-go, saying:

"Something just clicked and you know he and I got on really well and we just had a similar outlook on things. It was phenomenal to get him on board and suddenly people started taking us seriously."

Horner also disclosed that Newey is the godfather to one of his children. He said:

"Obviously, we're colleagues, but we're friends and you know the friendship is incredibly important. He's the godfather to one of my children and that's very important to me and you know we've been together a long time now and we've always enjoyed working together and we've always had a very good friendship."