Red Bull Wasn’t ‘Too Worried’ About Decline – Newey

Adrian Newey says problems he spotted with Red Bull’s 2024 car were not swiftly addressed by team management.

Amid the power struggle and internal turmoil at the team last year, Newey – one of the most respected technical minds in Formula 1 history – decided to leave.

It coincided with a very obvious drop in Red Bull’s performance, resulting in both McLaren and Ferrari racing past in the constructors’ championship.

“Obviously part of it was McLaren in particular and Ferrari as well developing their cars and doing a very good job of it,” Newey, now at Aston Martin, told Auto Motor und Sport.

“But from what I could see at Red Bull, the 2024 car – and also in the latter stages of 2023 – was starting to become more difficult to drive,” the 66-year-old added.

Max Verstappen still managed to secure his fourth consecutive drivers’ world championship, but Sergio Perez’s decline was so steep that he ultimately lost the seat for 2025.

“Max could still drive it,” Newey said. “It didn’t suit him, but he could drive it. Checo? No.

“We’d already started to see bigger differences in performance between Max and Checo in 2023, which continued into the first part of 2024. But the car was still quick enough to be able to deal with it.

“It was something I was starting to worry about, though. And not many other people in the organisation seemed to be too worried about it,” the Briton revealed.

Once Newey had stopped working on Red Bull’s car development, the situation sharply declined – before improving somewhat towards the end of the season.

A fascinating four-way battle between McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes is now shaping up for 2025.

“From what I could see from the outside, and this is not a criticism,” Newey said, “but the Red Bull guys I think just – maybe because of a lack of experience – kept going in the same direction. And the problem became more and more acute to the point that even Max was finding it difficult to drive.”

Newey insists it wasn’t just a matter of losing control of the car’s ideal setup.

“I’m not talking about the setup,” he said. “I’m talking about the fact that the setup can mask problems to a certain extent. But the problem is still there.”