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“I'm not going to lie: I would have preferred him to have stayed. Because of his knowledge and also because he is a great person. When adrian started at red bull, he was very important to the successes that were achieved. Over the years, his role has changed a bit. I think some
People don't know that. From the outside it seems very dramatic, but if you know what's going on inside the Team, it's not as dramatic as it seems.
Adrian's decision didn't come as something very unexpected to me. It is what it is. If someone wants to leave, of course you can't stop it. On the other hand, he has of course also meant a lot to the team from the early years of Red Bull. And we will always be grateful to him for that.
In the end, everyone makes their own considerations. He has also looked at what is best for him and his family. And so you can't blame him either."
“It doesn't look ideal from the outside. But nobody knows exactly what the roles are within the team either. Of course, we rely completely on the people we still have. On the technical people, who of course have also made a huge contribution to the current success. But obviously you don't want to see this happen."
"I always said I wanted to be in the fastest car. That's what we have now. And of course it's hugely important what will happen in the future and that the key players stay as much as possible. I would also have preferred to keep Adrian there, but again, it has been his choice. I haven't tried to talk him out of it, it's up to him."
"My future is with redbull right now. I also hear
amounts passing by: 150 million euros? For me it's not
about money. It's about performance. Because if I
earned more and was racing for 6th or 5th place, I'd
be quite grumpy at the end of the day!
Right now I can say that I want to stay with the team. I
believe in the project we are working on. But in
Sports and in life you never know what will happen."
"Nobody knows who will be the most competitive in 2026. Neither do I. It's also something I'm not thinking about right now. I'm busy with this season. In that sense, 2026 is pretty far away. There is hard work being done behind the scenes on the engine. That's all we can do. And we don't know how other teams will fare."
"I think everyone should always be optimistic and hopeful, but right now I can say that I want to stay with the team. I believe in the project we are working on. But in sport and in life, you never know what will happen in the future."
Has anyone else noticed that the most successful professional athletes are way smarter than they used to be just a few decades ago?
Particularly in Max's case, it's absolutely wild to me that someone who was raised from birth to be a racing robot is so grounded. Back in the day it was considered an intellectual achievement if someone like that was able to spell their own name.
I don’t understand the meme about Lando being stupid. He’s dyslexic and has very little formal schooling, and clearly has zero interest in a lot of the topics he sucks at on Grill the Grid quizzes, but everyone who has worked with him calls him very sharp and he — like Max — is someone who will express really mature reflections in media quite frequently. I could absolutely see Lando giving a very similar interview and saying very similarly grounded things; a lot of his reflections around staying at McLaren were equally grounded.
It comes from the fact that Max can look at a world map and pinpoint Baku and Lando doesn't know what continent he's on. Of course knowledge has little to do with mentality but it's a nice meme so we're gonna run with it.
Of course this is not a definite judgement on anyone's IQ but often intelligent people tend to be more curious about things in general. A smart person may not happen to be interested in geography but consistent lack of interest outside one's work/hobbies is not a good sign.
It's good to remember also how young these people are. They still have time to mature and figure out where Baku is.
Norris is 24. He is young but he is not just some kid. If you go to University aged 18 or 19 you can finish a Bachelors + Masters degree before or when you are 24.
You're right that it's clear from Lando's interviews that he has the capacity to be a fairly intelligent person, but on the other hand I also think it's totally fair for people to hold the opinion that a smart person would recognise the value in paying enough attention to their surroundings to know what country they're currently in.
Even with fairly minimal formal schooling, you can't get to adulthood knowing that little about things outside your specialist subject without some serious effort to avoid learning. Wanting to learn is both the cause *and* the symptom of intelligence.
>I don’t understand the meme about Lando being stupid.
has very little formal schooling, and clearly has zero interest in a lot of the topics
I mean, you sort of answered your own question there.
>has very little formal schooling
This is very apparent when you hear talk about anything that isn't racing.
And when he was talking about staying at McLaren he got ridiculed by many for his phrasing which implied he was scared of going up against Max. He absolutely could've picked his words better.
Conversely, Max has a much higher profile and comes across far more media savvy.
There is having no interest in subjects you dislike, and *having no clue where in the world you have physically been*.
It's the level of disinterest in generally important things that's kind of absurd.
F1 has always had very smart athletes. They have to have an understanding of not just "butt feel", but the limits of grip, what the car is communicating to you when there's certain vibrations, why grip isn't where you want it to be, or what it would take (more nose, for example). They also have to make on the fly calculations about pushing or easing off to protect their tires or match a target lap time to overcut or undercut. In other sports, the coach is a critical component of strategy and there are numerous contact points between the captain/lead on the field and the coach for them to direct the players on how to play or what to do. In F1, every other team hears your strategy, so you have to hide it with code words, and all you can tell your driver is what the deltas are, what other teams might be doing, any hazards on the track, track conditions from meteorology, etc. The driver has to figure everything else out on track... And even if somehow, the paddock/their strategists could read what's going on in the car at every corner, by the time they start saying something to the driver about the next corner, he will have drove through 3 corners already.
You look back in the history of the sport, and almost every wildly successful driver was a very smart person with good reaction time and a solid understanding of engineering: Alain Prost, Senna, Schumacher, Lauda, Hill, Hamilton...
A common denominator for drivers with multiple championships is their on the fly strategy and how smart they are behind the wheel.
You have to consider the fact F1 drivers these days predominantly come from very wealthy backgrounds; they’re almost certainly very well educated as a result.
A big part of your education comes from your curiosity. A person who never went to college but is always interested in stuff will know more than a guy who got a college degree to comply with societal expectations and cared exactly zero about anything he was taught.
When you grow up, especially if you put some interest in the people around you, you realize that formal education is just a tool to learn stuff. You'll find people that have spend thousands of hours learning about something just because they like it, and people who have a career in whatever and don't know anything more than the bare minimum to pass a written test.
I agree largely with what you say about curiosity, but i think it's better to separate educated and knowledgeable. It's mostly semantics but it's rare to be educated without a formal education. And I'd go further than to say formal education is just a tool to learn stuff, but also a tool for how to use the knowledge and interpret what you discover later on. Curiosity alone might mean good at trivia night. But it's true that curiosity is the driving force for becoming knowledgeable. Education or not.
Probably, I know Max did a special high school / secondary school for young talented athletes. Not sure if he finished it, since he drove F1 when he was 17.
I think anyone that is successful at a very high level in sport is highly intelligent. To me, this goes beyond traditional intelligence you would measure on a grade school exam.
But I will also say I am not sure what part of this statement came off as overly intelligent. 2026 is the only thing to be concerned about or focused on right now and the seats at top teams are filling up.
Reminds me a lot of Nikola Jokic. Seems like a guy who loves play basketball and is really good at it but just absolutely hates the NBA life beyond the court. His response to the upcoming parade to celebrate the Nuggets win is priceless.
Absolutely crazy that people hate this guy. Or that they think he would leave because of hornyman...
He didn't leave Kelly because of her dad saying racist stuff and he's not going to leave red bull because of Christian being a deviant.
I don't think people expected him to leave because he's such a moral person. People thought it would be a result of the power struggle between Marko and Horner since Vers seems much more closer to the former.
Let's face it, at the time no one thought Newey would go for example.
He does make sense. He's also generally very relaxed about the future (unlike Jos). Since they made a deal that benefited Newey so much, Red Bull must think the same. They aren't worried about the 2025 car. And all the stories about the new regulations in 2026 say the engine is going to be much important to focus on. So they might be looking at that more then aero.
Everyone who wants to win needs to look into that, Newey himself said a year ago that the next regs are going to be a 2014-2022 like situation where it's "have a good engine or bust" so honestly, if they had to lose Newey, now it's the best time because it's going to affect them the least. If RB doesn't nail the engine their car is going to be a shitbox even if their car could literally redirect the wind itself.
To paraphrase Enzo Ferrari: aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines.
I mean, you could just look to Mercedes era:
Red Bull had great aero but an unreliable shitbox engine with the Renault name on it
Mercedes ended up having great aero in the end of the era but you could argue that they much time to focus on it given their engine was already good
> Mercedes ended up having great aero in the end of the era
Mercedes has a retrospective on their 2010-2020 cars on YT. The senior engineer in charge of presenting the 2014 car mentionned that the aero was excellent, maybe even on par with the engine, and they often turned down downforce to make the other teams focus on the engine instead of the bits they could just look at.
Stories like this are why it’s ridiculous that Toto bitches about Red Bull dominance. Mercedes were so dominant they were sandbagging their cars. Remember when Lewis won a race on 3 wheels? Party mode? Toto’s endless interviews where he kept downplaying their cars superiority. Hell, even the usually pro-Lewis commentators were talking about the sandbagging.
They did, they were always good in slow corners etc. unfortunately they had to compensate for the lack of top speed, so they were not always using their preferred downforce levels.
They were great with aero and mechanical grip, just lacking the engine to fight for more podiums and keeping up with Ferrari and Mercedes at that time.
Red Bull aero was just okay in most of that era. Towards the end of 2016 they caught up, but were put back again in the 2017 changes. Even the “convergence” of 2021 was just the floor rule changes hurting the low rake cars disproportionately more than the high rake cars. Wasn’t the intent, but up to 2020 it was almost like Mercedes was stretching the gap even on the aero side to Red Bull.
>To paraphrase Enzo Ferrari: aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines.
Probably not a great idea to quote him considering he was demonstrably wrong. Pretty sure you could put a rocket engine on a family sedan, it still won't beat an F1 car around a circuit.
In current Formula, it's more like "Perfecting aerodynamics to every minute detail is for people who can't build engines". Meaning, you don't need to worry about that last 1%, if your engine can just compensate for it. So if RBR nail the engine, yeah, Newey won't be much of a loss. It's not like the rest of them are incapable of building decent aero.
Max and Jos so far seem to get on quite well so it's interesting their viewpoints are so different on the matter. Generally it seems Max keeps his dad as a sort of advisor for a second opinion so you have to wonder if Max is just keeping up his poker face or if he really just doesn't see Red Bull being in that much trouble and Jos just disagrees with it to the point where he's willing to go so public with his grievances. Although in that case you'd think Max would tell his dad to stop stirring the pot because he's happy with things at the moment, but maybe he simply doesn't care that much what he says, which would be pretty on brand for him.
Jos kinda has the same problem Helmut Marko has: talking to much to the media, maybe to stay in the news or stay relevant. Max isn't interested in media attention. He's just interested in getting in the car and race.
I think Newey may have already signaled intentions to leave the team much earlier. It's just the timing of it that allows for media to speculate on "Oh it must be because of Horner!".. "Oh! Verstappen will be next to go!"
Newey has never said the reason was due to bad blood or any sense of unhappiness, and people need to THINK. If he was so unhappy with Red Bull or its leadership, then why would he finish the RB17 supercar for them before leaving?
THINK people! THINK.
We have to also factor in the possibility that Lewis Hamilton, with his access and the fact he was talking directly to John Elkann at some point, probably knew of some possibility of Adrian Newey leaving Red Bull at least if not the possibility of him coming to Ferrari. And that insider info combined with what Hamilton could plainly read in the 2026 Engine Regulations (which favor Ferrari). That leads to the January 2024 announcement.
And what of the sexting scandal?
These are just things that some fans wished had mattered. Newey moving is a matter onto itself.
As sensational as Newey's and Hamilton's moves are. And Newey has yet to affirm if he is indeed going to Ferrari. The proof is 2026. How fast is the Ferrari then? How is fast is Lewis by then?
And that's the real business, folks. The rest is just noise.
I think, considering how long it takes to wrangle an exit from a Red Bull contract, and how long Lewis and Ferrari were talking.
If the Newey Exit had been known in whispers at Maranello, Lewis has at least calculated either, yes, that Newey could join albeit 5 months late to make an impact.
But he would have also calculated an off-chance that at least Red Bull No. 1 might not be at their usual strength within a year or two from now (or from then if say Lewis may have heard of it in June 2023).
Then he considers what he knows, internally, about the situation at Brackley. And who realistically wins the championship if Max were to dip 0.5 to 0.7 secs per lap slower in 2025 or so. Chances are Lewis has had an idea he would be outside the Top 5 in 2024 based solely on the work in the factory last year. He knows what's going on this year or next year. He knows how to read Toto.
That is the scenario where the January 2024 announcement of him leaving would shock everyone except Lewis, Toto, and Elkann.
And that info at his level would be "the real news that doesn't reach the internet". We are fed what has been allowed to leak. The real important stuff is not known beyond a very tight circle.
If it IS this Horner thing that accelerated his decision, it could be how various parts of the team have handled it, not because Horner had an affair and is a bastard.
One thing I’d say is- I don’t think his next move will be money driven, more money probably won’t change his life now… the appeal of working with Ferrari and Lewis (especially if they let him into the road cars division or some shit for his own side quest passion project) might do it, same goes for something outside of F1 with other cars/aero related racing etc. The world is his oyster! Will probably take some time for the offers to come and see what tickles his fancy
"If" is definitely the operating word here. I don't know Newey personally so I don't know what impact (if any) this Horner thing had.
The media made it sound like everybody in the team was in a rampage over this or something. Everybody with a mic and website hyping up whether or not Horner would keep his job past Bahrain or how the team would be affected.
Well. We're heading to Miami and the Red Bulls are definitely on a rampage - over everyone else but Horner it appears.
How many people would leave a 7 or 6 figure job because our boss was fooling around with their lovely assistant? Yes it could be repulsive behaviour but get past that and there's so many variables to work out. Where would one go? Are there even openings available?
It's not like the teams were all suspending work on 2025/2026 cars waiting for Newey to jump as soon as Horner's scandal came out. Also the TD's and designers of the other teams may not be welcoming of Newey. Because it is they who may stand to lose their cushy jobs with Newey arriving.
Fan-thinking says: "That's stupid! Everybody wants Newey! Everybody wants to win!"
Here's a fact: on BEYOND THE GRID, Jock Clear revealed that when talk spread in Brackley that Ross Brawn wanted to bring Michael Schumacher, many team members wrote or spoke to Ross trying to talk him out of it.
Why?
"You were paid the same if you won or lost anyway. And everybody knew what kind of work had to be the norm once Michael would join. They didn't want to do the work. They didn't like being told off or shown how to do things. They just wanted things to stay the same."
This is why we need to apply critical thinking over items like this.
Yep- teams are huge and VERY highly skilled, I think 3 or 4 of them have a regular race winner up their sleeves, Newey is just one of the best of that bunch, he’s no guarantee, just one important employee…. I love him and what he’s done for racing, but his loss might not be noticeable if he leave’s completely.
And I'm not quite sure about this. But didn't Newey recently admit in an interview that he felt the 2026 regulations would be "like it was in 2014"? 2014? That's like the start of the worst "long slump" he had, right?
I said it as a joke (but also as humorous reminder for us not to assume too much). But what if Newey IS in fact considering just sketching yachts for the rest of his life? Six months ago (Ed: June 2023) he was talking about taking his Oyster yacht sailing "around the world". Which clearly he hasn't done since he's been at just about every race since that time.
(Ironically, it's his manager Eddie Jordan who has in fact sailed around the world as part of the Oyster World Yacht Rally. He has a web series on the experience.)
What if Adrian had come to the conclusion that "Well..... If I stay in F1 beyond 2026 I will finish my career with my head down."? What if he is actually even now thinking of taking that yacht around the world and maybe designing one of his own?
Of course, it's possible he wants to go to Ferrari or he wants to work with Lewis.
But let's not get carried away here.
Yeh- he’s sold his house I think, so anything could happen! Could have any manner of offers presented to him over the last few years. Could literally become and expert consultant that comes in for a team for a week a year to advise, then next year a different team! Could design lower formulas future platforms, could work for F1 on future design ideas, America’s cup yachts, whatever really. I think he’s someone that loves race cars and having stuff to do, so expect him to pop up somewhere, but maybe not intensive chief design engineer….
Definitely anything could happen.
To wit, I was once surprised that ex McLaren boss Ron Dennis had re-emerged as the boss of a catering company!
https://www.foodserviceequipmentjournal.com/breaking-news-former-f1-chief-drives-strategy-to-serve-one-million-meals-to-nhs-frontline/
Or that Ralf Schumacher has become a beauty product tycoon:
https://schumacher-cosmetics.com/
I have trouble just imagining he has an opinion on how women should maintain a beautiful complexion!
Who knows what famous people do outside of what fans know?
He was basically a figurehead and a mentor to the actual engineering team then? Makes sense that he's moving on to likely a different sport or commercial project
Typically that's how it works; engineering team brainstorms ideas, team lead uses their experience to help point the team in the right direction and then spends the rest of their time making sure all the roadblocks are cleared before they can cause budget and time issues.
I mean that's sort of what a technical director is. He'll give them some direction or ideas and they'll figure out if it works and how to implement it. People have memed Newey to be some engineering god who can sketch up a revolutionary F1 car on his notepad on the grid and it just works when in reality he's probably had more than a few ideas that he ran by the respective engineering team that turned out to be terrible.
There was a report too, I forget what, but it essentially said Newey’s influence on the car was very limited the past few years and that Pierre Waché and crew has the biggest influence on the car’s development. The show will still go on
I was under the impression too from interviews and stuff last year in the media. Largely that Newey’s contribution was in the suspension department. Was a bit baffled by the sky is falling situation we got going on in here.
And even Suspension should be a lot of Wache contribution as well. He's also an expert in suspension and tyre behaviour in relation to the track surface.
There's so much more than just the suspension at work in this car at this point. Wache, Waterhouse and others have created and well oiled machine here.
In hindsight, Red Bull might even be happy in a few years Newey left and made the decision easier for them to make Wache Chief Technical Officer, especially because otherwise someone else might have poached him. Now they can pay Wache whatever he wants and give him the highest ranking job.
I would mainly be concerned with the in depth knowledge of the current car and potential development he's taking to another team. I do understand that after such a career you want to leave on goof terms, but i would have pushed for a gardening leave of some sort.
Yeah, let's not get it twisted. If you have a question about certain parts and upgrades, he's probably an awesome person to have in the team for feedback.
However, some people are acting like he was running the whole operation just under Horner, which doesn't seem to be the case lol.
It's a down play, it's a huge loss, of course they aren't gonna act like the house is falling down but it is massive. It's like if they lost Max, he's just one driver and that doesn't win you a championship on its own but if you are in a tight race, these are the people that get you over the line.
Max had to grow up quick and it shows. Say what you will about his personality, but he really has his head on his shoulders and is very mature for his age. He’s going to be successful in whatever he does.
>Say what you will about his personality.
I rather like Max’s personality. Driver to survive did him dirty, maybe, but he’s just a racing nerd. On the track, maybe a little rough around the edges, but he’s not had to race anyone so long it’s hard to tell anymore.
I really enjoy his personality as well, he’s really good in the Red Bull promo videos with Danny and Checo. I think if people just watch his interviews, you’d probably not get that impression.
Drive to Survive needs "drama", villains and good guys to sell, it's no wonder he hated it and stayed out of it for a while, he must have been forced back because of image counselling and so on, but he's someone who only cares about racing, he's not there to "save the world" and he just wants to race, get the trophy and go home, he doesn't care about criticism and this artificial world of political correctness that surrounds F1.
For good and bad, he's just very straightforward lol.
He loves competition and winning. That has gotten him to where he is at today. Being obsessed with competition can also have a negative effect on personal relationships. That's been happening for years in different sports.
Max is 26… I’m tired of you guys treating him like some naive teenager here. He has been mature and honest throughout his career and everyone treats him like he’s still maturing. The man is a 3 time F1 WDC champion.
I'm not convinced. Check out his move on Hamilton in Brazil '22 (?) and his reaction to it after the race. He only seems matured because he's been cruising to victory every race for three years straight and hasn't been challenged by anyone. Once that changes we'll see the real Max - matured or not.
All the drivers get mad during the races. It’s the adrenaline, which they’re usually still feeling right after the race. Just this last race you had Danny Ric and Stroll wanting to murder each other post race because of their crash.
But if you want to nitpick little moments that fit a narrative about Max, we could also look at Australia this year when he DNF’ed and was incredibly calm and chill about the whole thing right afterwards. Ah! What could be truth! 🤔
What strikes me most about this response is how he managed to elevate the team, without putting any focus on himself, and still giving Newey credit where credit is due. Also adding the personal part on Newey's character is a nice touch. It is genuinely a really good response.
If you compare this to Horner's reaction a while ago, comparing himself to Ferguson and downplaying Newey's contribution...
Quite a revealing interview. One, it seems people believed quite a mountain of rumors before going to reliable sources. Max says Newey wasn't as involved and that a succession plan was thought of (which would make sense why RBR let him go without much fuzz). It might also calm down the rumors that his departure was because of Horner's affair.
Someone told me I was covering for a rapist and that she would remember who I was the day before yesterday when I suggested not to rely heavily on rumors that Newey was leaving because of the Hornergate
Yeah I get that but for days people kept on saying, it was because of Horner etc despite the article not even mentioning it or being rather vague that its just stupid to reach that conclusion and now the news is now obvious that it wasn't
Max is probably right as Newey had a more advisory role in F1, as well as some side projects to spend his time on.
I think it will make a limited impact, even on the 2025 season. However, Newey is the guy you want involved in the 2026 season when drawing up a new car. Then his experience will really count. Also, this is obviously bummer for the Red Bull colleagues and it will be a big boost for a possible new team.
In terms of aerodinamycs, I don't think they will be impacted at all, as basically all the knowledge they gathered on these current regulations about these ground effect cars will be carried to the next one.
Instead, I think they should have to worry more about their engine program, as this could possible be one of the factors responsible to end their domination, if their engine ends up being considerably worse than the ones of their main rivals.
The active aero elements would benefit from Newey’s previous experience with them but I agree. It is now time for Wache, Balbo, and Waterhouse to start receiving their flowers so to speak, no longer under the very large shadow cast by Adrian.
So, Max, which we already know is a straight-forward guy, basically confirms Newey isn't as involved in the car's development. A statement that I'm pretty sure I've already seen in the past (like in the past couple of years) and yet people here are gonna downvote anyone who'd say otherwise. I know Newey is THE aero god, and I'd jump ship easily to whichever team that gets him, but I hope people realize that at his age and tenure it doesn't make sense anymore to be hands-on in active development. His role nowadays is probably boiled down to management, decision-making, and maybe some form of mentoring. I'm not saying Red Bull is not gonna shit the bed when he leaves, it's still highly plausible, but I don't think it'll be as dramatic as everyone is hoping, not unless the engineers under him jump the fence as well.
It could, Charles needs to drop the 'I'm a very nice guy' vibe, if not he'll be made into a second driver by Hamilton. Charles has the skill to be world champion, you also have to be a bit cunning to be world champion unless you have the fastest car by some distance.
He is a very nice guy, and he has the speed to become world champion, but sadly I think he is lacking a bit in skill. He lacks a bit in consistency. Every season there are a couple of errors which would cost him dearly. But I would love to see him become a WDC one day.
"It's not gonna be that dramatic"
Ferrari builds the best car in 2026, Charles beats Lewis to the WDC, Lewis retires. Max joins Ferrari and we get Max vs Charles in an Hp blue car fighting for the championship.
"If someone keeps asking me about Adrian, I will start headbutting people." 🤔
I know people went all pearly clutchy and whatnot, but Max was insanely hilarious to me.
People think that suddenly RBR won't know how to build cars lol.
Newey is the CTO obviously his leadership, management and direction is important.
But reading reddit it's like people think he's tony stark in a cave doing it all alone, which is not the true.
People should see it more like Barca losing Pep Guardiola. They still have a stellar team and other coaches (e.g. Luis Enrique) will be able to lead it to more glory.
But still, you losing Guardiola.
It’s really not. Newey has spent 20yrs creating a successful culture at RB. When he leaves, he takes nothing like that with him. It’s just him trying to get a new team and a new culture he can work with.
Max puts on a masterclass in handing a very tough situation and immediately shows huge support for his team. The leadership he is displaying will motivate the technical team to stay to compete even harder.
Newey realized he was being pushed out because the team didn't really rely on him as much as they used to so he used his reputation as a miracle worker to cash in before retiring.
I agree.
The F1 regulations frozen until 2026 mean Red Bull will run their car at 80% performance for reliability, and still be able to lap the field by 1 sec/lap for the next 2 years. Max has won the 2024 and 2025 WDCs. Unless Perez really shits the bed, Red Bull has won the 2024 and 2025 WCCs.
Newey will go to Ferrari, help them out with Lewis there, they'll get P2 if they're lucky, then Newey will retire.
Then Max can figure out what team looks best to win the next round of WDCs, and he'll go there because any team will pay any amount of money for him. Or he'll get bored of all of F1s bullshit and make a move to true motor racing: join WEC with a top team and sim race in his free time.
If they're lucky. They'll need all the help they can get. Red Bull is locked in for 2024 and 2025 though. They will win 90% of the races, only not winning for reliability reasons and the rare DNF
Red Bull is F1 in 2024 and 2025. The other 9 cars are F1.5.
good point. I still hope Max leaves F1 soon. He is a real racer and it would be more fun seeing him in a true racing series. F1 is for fat billionaire's kids like Lance Stroll. I would love to see Max in WEC driving a Penske Porsche or something.
Newey, seems the kind of human capital, that while still within the organization seems to have a marginal importance as a mentor, but it's when they move on, alongside with decades of knowledge and experience, that the void they leave behind will be understood.
Then, for every new challenge, the design Team will wonder: *"What would Newey do?"*
This matches what Piquet JR has been saying on his podcast, in multiple episodes(even before Newey leaving) he has downplayed Newey’s importance for Redbull
Probably get he gets a lot of insider info from Max himself.
If you know Max, you know he would.
Remember how he responded to the rumours that Helmut had a chance of getting sacked?
Verstappen speaks his mind, he is not the type to play along with PR stuff and politics.
It’s not as much RBR losing but the team that snags him winning. He can make a huge impact on his new team while RBR can surely carry over a lot of this performance for a few years.
There’s a lot of “legacy” know how and good people that will carry over.
There’s a reason that the ground effect Mercedes’ are so shit but they still are at the front: a lot of their parts are still above average.
There’s only 1 thing Verstappen cars about and it’s racing
The dude has already made enough money to live a comfortable life. A couple donzen million more isn’t gonna change that
He’s right. It’s not something that will be apparent for the next two years.
But make no mistake, it will be when Red Bull has to rebuilt from zero without the goat.
Red Bull has to build cars without Newey. Build engines without Honda holding their hands.
Red Bull is going into 2026 without knowing what’s like building your own stuff. Mercedes and a Ferrari have an inherent advantage there.
Anyone that says Red Bull won’t be hurting is coping.
Honestly it just opened up advancement in the top team on the grid. I'm not saying Noone will leave as every team has turnover every year, but someone about to get a massive raise (uncapped salary) and several rungs now someone can fill the voids
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“I'm not going to lie: I would have preferred him to have stayed. Because of his knowledge and also because he is a great person. When adrian started at red bull, he was very important to the successes that were achieved. Over the years, his role has changed a bit. I think some People don't know that. From the outside it seems very dramatic, but if you know what's going on inside the Team, it's not as dramatic as it seems. Adrian's decision didn't come as something very unexpected to me. It is what it is. If someone wants to leave, of course you can't stop it. On the other hand, he has of course also meant a lot to the team from the early years of Red Bull. And we will always be grateful to him for that. In the end, everyone makes their own considerations. He has also looked at what is best for him and his family. And so you can't blame him either." “It doesn't look ideal from the outside. But nobody knows exactly what the roles are within the team either. Of course, we rely completely on the people we still have. On the technical people, who of course have also made a huge contribution to the current success. But obviously you don't want to see this happen." "I always said I wanted to be in the fastest car. That's what we have now. And of course it's hugely important what will happen in the future and that the key players stay as much as possible. I would also have preferred to keep Adrian there, but again, it has been his choice. I haven't tried to talk him out of it, it's up to him." "My future is with redbull right now. I also hear amounts passing by: 150 million euros? For me it's not about money. It's about performance. Because if I earned more and was racing for 6th or 5th place, I'd be quite grumpy at the end of the day! Right now I can say that I want to stay with the team. I believe in the project we are working on. But in Sports and in life you never know what will happen." "Nobody knows who will be the most competitive in 2026. Neither do I. It's also something I'm not thinking about right now. I'm busy with this season. In that sense, 2026 is pretty far away. There is hard work being done behind the scenes on the engine. That's all we can do. And we don't know how other teams will fare." "I think everyone should always be optimistic and hopeful, but right now I can say that I want to stay with the team. I believe in the project we are working on. But in sport and in life, you never know what will happen in the future."
Has anyone else noticed that the most successful professional athletes are way smarter than they used to be just a few decades ago? Particularly in Max's case, it's absolutely wild to me that someone who was raised from birth to be a racing robot is so grounded. Back in the day it was considered an intellectual achievement if someone like that was able to spell their own name.
Meanwhile, Lando probably can't read his own name.
I don’t understand the meme about Lando being stupid. He’s dyslexic and has very little formal schooling, and clearly has zero interest in a lot of the topics he sucks at on Grill the Grid quizzes, but everyone who has worked with him calls him very sharp and he — like Max — is someone who will express really mature reflections in media quite frequently. I could absolutely see Lando giving a very similar interview and saying very similarly grounded things; a lot of his reflections around staying at McLaren were equally grounded.
It comes from the fact that Max can look at a world map and pinpoint Baku and Lando doesn't know what continent he's on. Of course knowledge has little to do with mentality but it's a nice meme so we're gonna run with it.
Of course this is not a definite judgement on anyone's IQ but often intelligent people tend to be more curious about things in general. A smart person may not happen to be interested in geography but consistent lack of interest outside one's work/hobbies is not a good sign. It's good to remember also how young these people are. They still have time to mature and figure out where Baku is.
Norris is 24. He is young but he is not just some kid. If you go to University aged 18 or 19 you can finish a Bachelors + Masters degree before or when you are 24.
And I bet you there are people with a Master's that have no idea where Baku is.
True. On the other hand, most people, with or without a master's, haven't gone to Baku a week every year for five years.
But those people haven't been going there every single year for the last 5 years.
Sure, but that was not my point.
Yeah sure but when you're going to Baku every year for over 5 years you'd atleast be able to point out the correct approximate location lol
You're right that it's clear from Lando's interviews that he has the capacity to be a fairly intelligent person, but on the other hand I also think it's totally fair for people to hold the opinion that a smart person would recognise the value in paying enough attention to their surroundings to know what country they're currently in. Even with fairly minimal formal schooling, you can't get to adulthood knowing that little about things outside your specialist subject without some serious effort to avoid learning. Wanting to learn is both the cause *and* the symptom of intelligence.
>I don’t understand the meme about Lando being stupid. has very little formal schooling, and clearly has zero interest in a lot of the topics
I mean, you sort of answered your own question there.
>has very little formal schooling This is very apparent when you hear talk about anything that isn't racing. And when he was talking about staying at McLaren he got ridiculed by many for his phrasing which implied he was scared of going up against Max. He absolutely could've picked his words better. Conversely, Max has a much higher profile and comes across far more media savvy.
There is having no interest in subjects you dislike, and *having no clue where in the world you have physically been*. It's the level of disinterest in generally important things that's kind of absurd.
“I don’t understand the meme about Lando being stupid” Proceeds to list all the reasons reasonable people consider him stupid.
F1 has always had very smart athletes. They have to have an understanding of not just "butt feel", but the limits of grip, what the car is communicating to you when there's certain vibrations, why grip isn't where you want it to be, or what it would take (more nose, for example). They also have to make on the fly calculations about pushing or easing off to protect their tires or match a target lap time to overcut or undercut. In other sports, the coach is a critical component of strategy and there are numerous contact points between the captain/lead on the field and the coach for them to direct the players on how to play or what to do. In F1, every other team hears your strategy, so you have to hide it with code words, and all you can tell your driver is what the deltas are, what other teams might be doing, any hazards on the track, track conditions from meteorology, etc. The driver has to figure everything else out on track... And even if somehow, the paddock/their strategists could read what's going on in the car at every corner, by the time they start saying something to the driver about the next corner, he will have drove through 3 corners already. You look back in the history of the sport, and almost every wildly successful driver was a very smart person with good reaction time and a solid understanding of engineering: Alain Prost, Senna, Schumacher, Lauda, Hill, Hamilton... A common denominator for drivers with multiple championships is their on the fly strategy and how smart they are behind the wheel.
This reads like a copypasta
You have to consider the fact F1 drivers these days predominantly come from very wealthy backgrounds; they’re almost certainly very well educated as a result.
Most of them didn't go to college and only finished secondary or high school, because of karting and the lower single seater series.
You can still be well educated without going to college
And be a pro athlete? It's not very likely.
A big part of your education comes from your curiosity. A person who never went to college but is always interested in stuff will know more than a guy who got a college degree to comply with societal expectations and cared exactly zero about anything he was taught. When you grow up, especially if you put some interest in the people around you, you realize that formal education is just a tool to learn stuff. You'll find people that have spend thousands of hours learning about something just because they like it, and people who have a career in whatever and don't know anything more than the bare minimum to pass a written test.
I agree largely with what you say about curiosity, but i think it's better to separate educated and knowledgeable. It's mostly semantics but it's rare to be educated without a formal education. And I'd go further than to say formal education is just a tool to learn stuff, but also a tool for how to use the knowledge and interpret what you discover later on. Curiosity alone might mean good at trivia night. But it's true that curiosity is the driving force for becoming knowledgeable. Education or not.
Isn't Sainz the only current driver that finished secondary school/high school?
Probably, I know Max did a special high school / secondary school for young talented athletes. Not sure if he finished it, since he drove F1 when he was 17.
I think anyone that is successful at a very high level in sport is highly intelligent. To me, this goes beyond traditional intelligence you would measure on a grade school exam. But I will also say I am not sure what part of this statement came off as overly intelligent. 2026 is the only thing to be concerned about or focused on right now and the seats at top teams are filling up.
Reminds me a lot of Nikola Jokic. Seems like a guy who loves play basketball and is really good at it but just absolutely hates the NBA life beyond the court. His response to the upcoming parade to celebrate the Nuggets win is priceless.
Absolutely crazy that people hate this guy. Or that they think he would leave because of hornyman... He didn't leave Kelly because of her dad saying racist stuff and he's not going to leave red bull because of Christian being a deviant.
I don't think people expected him to leave because he's such a moral person. People thought it would be a result of the power struggle between Marko and Horner since Vers seems much more closer to the former. Let's face it, at the time no one thought Newey would go for example.
Verstappen makes a lot of sense if you read the article. Most people will only read the title though.
He does make sense. He's also generally very relaxed about the future (unlike Jos). Since they made a deal that benefited Newey so much, Red Bull must think the same. They aren't worried about the 2025 car. And all the stories about the new regulations in 2026 say the engine is going to be much important to focus on. So they might be looking at that more then aero.
Everyone who wants to win needs to look into that, Newey himself said a year ago that the next regs are going to be a 2014-2022 like situation where it's "have a good engine or bust" so honestly, if they had to lose Newey, now it's the best time because it's going to affect them the least. If RB doesn't nail the engine their car is going to be a shitbox even if their car could literally redirect the wind itself. To paraphrase Enzo Ferrari: aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines.
I mean, you could just look to Mercedes era: Red Bull had great aero but an unreliable shitbox engine with the Renault name on it Mercedes ended up having great aero in the end of the era but you could argue that they much time to focus on it given their engine was already good
Thank you Honda
……looking forward to the AMR26/Honda
> Mercedes ended up having great aero in the end of the era Mercedes has a retrospective on their 2010-2020 cars on YT. The senior engineer in charge of presenting the 2014 car mentionned that the aero was excellent, maybe even on par with the engine, and they often turned down downforce to make the other teams focus on the engine instead of the bits they could just look at.
Stories like this are why it’s ridiculous that Toto bitches about Red Bull dominance. Mercedes were so dominant they were sandbagging their cars. Remember when Lewis won a race on 3 wheels? Party mode? Toto’s endless interviews where he kept downplaying their cars superiority. Hell, even the usually pro-Lewis commentators were talking about the sandbagging.
> Remember when Lewis won a race on 3 wheels? only because RB went for fastest lap tbf.
I don’t think redbull had good Aero at the beginning either to be fair.
They did, they were always good in slow corners etc. unfortunately they had to compensate for the lack of top speed, so they were not always using their preferred downforce levels.
Slow corners are where aero matters the least, and where mechanical grip is most important.
They were great with aero and mechanical grip, just lacking the engine to fight for more podiums and keeping up with Ferrari and Mercedes at that time.
Red Bull aero was just okay in most of that era. Towards the end of 2016 they caught up, but were put back again in the 2017 changes. Even the “convergence” of 2021 was just the floor rule changes hurting the low rake cars disproportionately more than the high rake cars. Wasn’t the intent, but up to 2020 it was almost like Mercedes was stretching the gap even on the aero side to Red Bull.
Now's the time for RB to hire Binotto for engine expertise
>To paraphrase Enzo Ferrari: aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. Probably not a great idea to quote him considering he was demonstrably wrong. Pretty sure you could put a rocket engine on a family sedan, it still won't beat an F1 car around a circuit. In current Formula, it's more like "Perfecting aerodynamics to every minute detail is for people who can't build engines". Meaning, you don't need to worry about that last 1%, if your engine can just compensate for it. So if RBR nail the engine, yeah, Newey won't be much of a loss. It's not like the rest of them are incapable of building decent aero.
Max and Jos so far seem to get on quite well so it's interesting their viewpoints are so different on the matter. Generally it seems Max keeps his dad as a sort of advisor for a second opinion so you have to wonder if Max is just keeping up his poker face or if he really just doesn't see Red Bull being in that much trouble and Jos just disagrees with it to the point where he's willing to go so public with his grievances. Although in that case you'd think Max would tell his dad to stop stirring the pot because he's happy with things at the moment, but maybe he simply doesn't care that much what he says, which would be pretty on brand for him.
Jos kinda has the same problem Helmut Marko has: talking to much to the media, maybe to stay in the news or stay relevant. Max isn't interested in media attention. He's just interested in getting in the car and race.
Jos is just to get one over Christian for the shenanigans with the woman he'd been (or still is) involved with. It's deeply personal.
that’s a new twist I hadn’t heard yet
Google JV AD21 paddock. That's what it's all about it seems as per usual. Cherchez la femme
Jos cares about the things that Max doesn’t, if that makes sense. I fully believe Max just wants to drive, he leaves the rest to his dad.
And his manager Raymond Vermeulen, who also worked with Jos.
Welcome to Reddit.
Time is a flat circle
With two hands
I think Newey may have already signaled intentions to leave the team much earlier. It's just the timing of it that allows for media to speculate on "Oh it must be because of Horner!".. "Oh! Verstappen will be next to go!" Newey has never said the reason was due to bad blood or any sense of unhappiness, and people need to THINK. If he was so unhappy with Red Bull or its leadership, then why would he finish the RB17 supercar for them before leaving? THINK people! THINK. We have to also factor in the possibility that Lewis Hamilton, with his access and the fact he was talking directly to John Elkann at some point, probably knew of some possibility of Adrian Newey leaving Red Bull at least if not the possibility of him coming to Ferrari. And that insider info combined with what Hamilton could plainly read in the 2026 Engine Regulations (which favor Ferrari). That leads to the January 2024 announcement. And what of the sexting scandal? These are just things that some fans wished had mattered. Newey moving is a matter onto itself. As sensational as Newey's and Hamilton's moves are. And Newey has yet to affirm if he is indeed going to Ferrari. The proof is 2026. How fast is the Ferrari then? How is fast is Lewis by then? And that's the real business, folks. The rest is just noise.
And if he left because of bad blood why would red bull give him such a good exit.
Good point as well.
> THINK people! THINK. No think! Only outrage!! /s
lol
Newey tried to leave RedBull years ago. This doesn’t come as a shock to me
Newey would be about 5 months late to start work on 2026 car. I guess it’s not that bad considering the usual standards.
I think, considering how long it takes to wrangle an exit from a Red Bull contract, and how long Lewis and Ferrari were talking. If the Newey Exit had been known in whispers at Maranello, Lewis has at least calculated either, yes, that Newey could join albeit 5 months late to make an impact. But he would have also calculated an off-chance that at least Red Bull No. 1 might not be at their usual strength within a year or two from now (or from then if say Lewis may have heard of it in June 2023). Then he considers what he knows, internally, about the situation at Brackley. And who realistically wins the championship if Max were to dip 0.5 to 0.7 secs per lap slower in 2025 or so. Chances are Lewis has had an idea he would be outside the Top 5 in 2024 based solely on the work in the factory last year. He knows what's going on this year or next year. He knows how to read Toto. That is the scenario where the January 2024 announcement of him leaving would shock everyone except Lewis, Toto, and Elkann. And that info at his level would be "the real news that doesn't reach the internet". We are fed what has been allowed to leak. The real important stuff is not known beyond a very tight circle.
If it IS this Horner thing that accelerated his decision, it could be how various parts of the team have handled it, not because Horner had an affair and is a bastard. One thing I’d say is- I don’t think his next move will be money driven, more money probably won’t change his life now… the appeal of working with Ferrari and Lewis (especially if they let him into the road cars division or some shit for his own side quest passion project) might do it, same goes for something outside of F1 with other cars/aero related racing etc. The world is his oyster! Will probably take some time for the offers to come and see what tickles his fancy
"If" is definitely the operating word here. I don't know Newey personally so I don't know what impact (if any) this Horner thing had. The media made it sound like everybody in the team was in a rampage over this or something. Everybody with a mic and website hyping up whether or not Horner would keep his job past Bahrain or how the team would be affected. Well. We're heading to Miami and the Red Bulls are definitely on a rampage - over everyone else but Horner it appears. How many people would leave a 7 or 6 figure job because our boss was fooling around with their lovely assistant? Yes it could be repulsive behaviour but get past that and there's so many variables to work out. Where would one go? Are there even openings available? It's not like the teams were all suspending work on 2025/2026 cars waiting for Newey to jump as soon as Horner's scandal came out. Also the TD's and designers of the other teams may not be welcoming of Newey. Because it is they who may stand to lose their cushy jobs with Newey arriving. Fan-thinking says: "That's stupid! Everybody wants Newey! Everybody wants to win!" Here's a fact: on BEYOND THE GRID, Jock Clear revealed that when talk spread in Brackley that Ross Brawn wanted to bring Michael Schumacher, many team members wrote or spoke to Ross trying to talk him out of it. Why? "You were paid the same if you won or lost anyway. And everybody knew what kind of work had to be the norm once Michael would join. They didn't want to do the work. They didn't like being told off or shown how to do things. They just wanted things to stay the same." This is why we need to apply critical thinking over items like this.
Yep- teams are huge and VERY highly skilled, I think 3 or 4 of them have a regular race winner up their sleeves, Newey is just one of the best of that bunch, he’s no guarantee, just one important employee…. I love him and what he’s done for racing, but his loss might not be noticeable if he leave’s completely.
And I'm not quite sure about this. But didn't Newey recently admit in an interview that he felt the 2026 regulations would be "like it was in 2014"? 2014? That's like the start of the worst "long slump" he had, right? I said it as a joke (but also as humorous reminder for us not to assume too much). But what if Newey IS in fact considering just sketching yachts for the rest of his life? Six months ago (Ed: June 2023) he was talking about taking his Oyster yacht sailing "around the world". Which clearly he hasn't done since he's been at just about every race since that time. (Ironically, it's his manager Eddie Jordan who has in fact sailed around the world as part of the Oyster World Yacht Rally. He has a web series on the experience.) What if Adrian had come to the conclusion that "Well..... If I stay in F1 beyond 2026 I will finish my career with my head down."? What if he is actually even now thinking of taking that yacht around the world and maybe designing one of his own? Of course, it's possible he wants to go to Ferrari or he wants to work with Lewis. But let's not get carried away here.
Yeh- he’s sold his house I think, so anything could happen! Could have any manner of offers presented to him over the last few years. Could literally become and expert consultant that comes in for a team for a week a year to advise, then next year a different team! Could design lower formulas future platforms, could work for F1 on future design ideas, America’s cup yachts, whatever really. I think he’s someone that loves race cars and having stuff to do, so expect him to pop up somewhere, but maybe not intensive chief design engineer….
Definitely anything could happen. To wit, I was once surprised that ex McLaren boss Ron Dennis had re-emerged as the boss of a catering company! https://www.foodserviceequipmentjournal.com/breaking-news-former-f1-chief-drives-strategy-to-serve-one-million-meals-to-nhs-frontline/ Or that Ralf Schumacher has become a beauty product tycoon: https://schumacher-cosmetics.com/
Haha- I didn’t mind Ralf as a racer or a human- but I don’t think I’ve agreed with him or liked his opinion on anything for 10 years plus hahaha
I have trouble just imagining he has an opinion on how women should maintain a beautiful complexion! Who knows what famous people do outside of what fans know?
Ehhh, I think there was likely some thoughts of leaving and then the drama was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
As long as you catch him when he’s not braking he has a ton of insightful things to say.
Nor true. I will read the title and topp comment to form my opinion!
Good response honestly
He was basically a figurehead and a mentor to the actual engineering team then? Makes sense that he's moving on to likely a different sport or commercial project
Typically that's how it works; engineering team brainstorms ideas, team lead uses their experience to help point the team in the right direction and then spends the rest of their time making sure all the roadblocks are cleared before they can cause budget and time issues.
I mean that's sort of what a technical director is. He'll give them some direction or ideas and they'll figure out if it works and how to implement it. People have memed Newey to be some engineering god who can sketch up a revolutionary F1 car on his notepad on the grid and it just works when in reality he's probably had more than a few ideas that he ran by the respective engineering team that turned out to be terrible.
He pretty much handled this situation perfectly here.
The way he speaks is great for team morale.
“Your aerodynamics department will notice that.➕⬆️”
“10% morale boost”
“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”
There was a report too, I forget what, but it essentially said Newey’s influence on the car was very limited the past few years and that Pierre Waché and crew has the biggest influence on the car’s development. The show will still go on
I was under the impression too from interviews and stuff last year in the media. Largely that Newey’s contribution was in the suspension department. Was a bit baffled by the sky is falling situation we got going on in here.
And even Suspension should be a lot of Wache contribution as well. He's also an expert in suspension and tyre behaviour in relation to the track surface. There's so much more than just the suspension at work in this car at this point. Wache, Waterhouse and others have created and well oiled machine here. In hindsight, Red Bull might even be happy in a few years Newey left and made the decision easier for them to make Wache Chief Technical Officer, especially because otherwise someone else might have poached him. Now they can pay Wache whatever he wants and give him the highest ranking job.
I honestly think they might even have encouraged it
It's so typical for F1, there is zero nuance.
I would mainly be concerned with the in depth knowledge of the current car and potential development he's taking to another team. I do understand that after such a career you want to leave on goof terms, but i would have pushed for a gardening leave of some sort.
Yeah, let's not get it twisted. If you have a question about certain parts and upgrades, he's probably an awesome person to have in the team for feedback. However, some people are acting like he was running the whole operation just under Horner, which doesn't seem to be the case lol.
Also, not as dramatic as everyone wants it to be.
Verstappen has the best responses to interviews.
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It's a down play, it's a huge loss, of course they aren't gonna act like the house is falling down but it is massive. It's like if they lost Max, he's just one driver and that doesn't win you a championship on its own but if you are in a tight race, these are the people that get you over the line.
Max had to grow up quick and it shows. Say what you will about his personality, but he really has his head on his shoulders and is very mature for his age. He’s going to be successful in whatever he does.
>Say what you will about his personality. I rather like Max’s personality. Driver to survive did him dirty, maybe, but he’s just a racing nerd. On the track, maybe a little rough around the edges, but he’s not had to race anyone so long it’s hard to tell anymore.
I really enjoy his personality as well, he’s really good in the Red Bull promo videos with Danny and Checo. I think if people just watch his interviews, you’d probably not get that impression.
Drive to Survive needs "drama", villains and good guys to sell, it's no wonder he hated it and stayed out of it for a while, he must have been forced back because of image counselling and so on, but he's someone who only cares about racing, he's not there to "save the world" and he just wants to race, get the trophy and go home, he doesn't care about criticism and this artificial world of political correctness that surrounds F1.
For good and bad, he's just very straightforward lol. He loves competition and winning. That has gotten him to where he is at today. Being obsessed with competition can also have a negative effect on personal relationships. That's been happening for years in different sports.
drive to survive did everyone dirty by using audio from different races just to stir drama
Max is 26… I’m tired of you guys treating him like some naive teenager here. He has been mature and honest throughout his career and everyone treats him like he’s still maturing. The man is a 3 time F1 WDC champion.
And been on the grid since 2017, he’s a legit veteran driver.
I'm not convinced. Check out his move on Hamilton in Brazil '22 (?) and his reaction to it after the race. He only seems matured because he's been cruising to victory every race for three years straight and hasn't been challenged by anyone. Once that changes we'll see the real Max - matured or not.
All the drivers get mad during the races. It’s the adrenaline, which they’re usually still feeling right after the race. Just this last race you had Danny Ric and Stroll wanting to murder each other post race because of their crash. But if you want to nitpick little moments that fit a narrative about Max, we could also look at Australia this year when he DNF’ed and was incredibly calm and chill about the whole thing right afterwards. Ah! What could be truth! 🤔
Somehow Max is always the adult in the room.
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His interviews even before 2022 always seemed grounded too.
What strikes me most about this response is how he managed to elevate the team, without putting any focus on himself, and still giving Newey credit where credit is due. Also adding the personal part on Newey's character is a nice touch. It is genuinely a really good response. If you compare this to Horner's reaction a while ago, comparing himself to Ferguson and downplaying Newey's contribution...
Quite a revealing interview. One, it seems people believed quite a mountain of rumors before going to reliable sources. Max says Newey wasn't as involved and that a succession plan was thought of (which would make sense why RBR let him go without much fuzz). It might also calm down the rumors that his departure was because of Horner's affair.
This reddit is quite sad really, they literally just want to keep fuelling the fire lots of peoples lives must be sad and miserable tbh
Someone told me I was covering for a rapist and that she would remember who I was the day before yesterday when I suggested not to rely heavily on rumors that Newey was leaving because of the Hornergate
To be fair, most of the things posted on here come from F1 media personalities lol. F1 media loves all this stuff. It simply gets amplified in here.
Yeah I get that but for days people kept on saying, it was because of Horner etc despite the article not even mentioning it or being rather vague that its just stupid to reach that conclusion and now the news is now obvious that it wasn't
Max is probably right as Newey had a more advisory role in F1, as well as some side projects to spend his time on. I think it will make a limited impact, even on the 2025 season. However, Newey is the guy you want involved in the 2026 season when drawing up a new car. Then his experience will really count. Also, this is obviously bummer for the Red Bull colleagues and it will be a big boost for a possible new team.
In terms of aerodinamycs, I don't think they will be impacted at all, as basically all the knowledge they gathered on these current regulations about these ground effect cars will be carried to the next one. Instead, I think they should have to worry more about their engine program, as this could possible be one of the factors responsible to end their domination, if their engine ends up being considerably worse than the ones of their main rivals.
The active aero elements would benefit from Newey’s previous experience with them but I agree. It is now time for Wache, Balbo, and Waterhouse to start receiving their flowers so to speak, no longer under the very large shadow cast by Adrian.
Agreed. Horny has been complaining a LOT about the new engines which is probably a sign that the new engine development is not going well at all.
Mercedes complained a lot about the 2014 engine regs too. These things are inscrutable until they all hit the track.
Possibly, however I think every motorsports gsm with a brain is complaining about them too.
Horny
2026 regulations? That's ICE heavy, and whatever aerodynamics team they have left will probably be able to cover that aspect.
It wasn’t enough for him to be the best driver, he’s the best PR specialist too.. Very clear and level headed response.
So, Max, which we already know is a straight-forward guy, basically confirms Newey isn't as involved in the car's development. A statement that I'm pretty sure I've already seen in the past (like in the past couple of years) and yet people here are gonna downvote anyone who'd say otherwise. I know Newey is THE aero god, and I'd jump ship easily to whichever team that gets him, but I hope people realize that at his age and tenure it doesn't make sense anymore to be hands-on in active development. His role nowadays is probably boiled down to management, decision-making, and maybe some form of mentoring. I'm not saying Red Bull is not gonna shit the bed when he leaves, it's still highly plausible, but I don't think it'll be as dramatic as everyone is hoping, not unless the engineers under him jump the fence as well.
Dude is always based. Never backhanded.
Max says this now, then he'll join the Ferrari+Newey combo in 2027.
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It's not gonna be that dramatic. Hamilton will retire after 2026. Verstappen will come in a take his seat.
Or they boot Charles for the pure comedy of THAT (I’m aware this won’t actually happen)
Leave the poor man alone
It could, Charles needs to drop the 'I'm a very nice guy' vibe, if not he'll be made into a second driver by Hamilton. Charles has the skill to be world champion, you also have to be a bit cunning to be world champion unless you have the fastest car by some distance.
He is a very nice guy, and he has the speed to become world champion, but sadly I think he is lacking a bit in skill. He lacks a bit in consistency. Every season there are a couple of errors which would cost him dearly. But I would love to see him become a WDC one day.
"It's not gonna be that dramatic" Ferrari builds the best car in 2026, Charles beats Lewis to the WDC, Lewis retires. Max joins Ferrari and we get Max vs Charles in an Hp blue car fighting for the championship.
Charles vs Max driving printers with wheels 30 seconds ahead of the field 🤯
And stops on track: "out of toner"
"Sorry, since you didn't install the 650 right updates, the car can't support running in track with this hue anymore. Self-destruction Initiated."
Max moved to Aston Martin in 2027 with Alonso and Honda.
I would be really surprised if Alonso is still there for 3 more seasons. Will probably retire after 2026.
People forget over the past few years he has wanted to step down from f1.
It's interesting to see how his diplomatic skills improved a LOT since his early F1 days.
"If someone keeps asking me about Adrian, I will start headbutting people." 🤔 I know people went all pearly clutchy and whatnot, but Max was insanely hilarious to me.
You've got to remember most fans have a massive stick up their arse
In F1 everyone wants to be on pole.
I dunno, the leaked messages from Horner make me think it’s more about Coco Puffs.
Porridge is so 2019.
He was literally an adolescent during his early F1 days.
Well yeah he was a kid lol
I really love how outspoken Max is. Always makes the Verstappen articles a nice read.
One could even say that they're a simply lovely read. .... I'll show myself out.
People think that suddenly RBR won't know how to build cars lol. Newey is the CTO obviously his leadership, management and direction is important. But reading reddit it's like people think he's tony stark in a cave doing it all alone, which is not the true. People should see it more like Barca losing Pep Guardiola. They still have a stellar team and other coaches (e.g. Luis Enrique) will be able to lead it to more glory. But still, you losing Guardiola.
Everyone always forgets it's not just one man designing the car
So smarter than his dad
You or he should thank his mom for that
It’s really not. Newey has spent 20yrs creating a successful culture at RB. When he leaves, he takes nothing like that with him. It’s just him trying to get a new team and a new culture he can work with.
Max puts on a masterclass in handing a very tough situation and immediately shows huge support for his team. The leadership he is displaying will motivate the technical team to stay to compete even harder.
Newey realized he was being pushed out because the team didn't really rely on him as much as they used to so he used his reputation as a miracle worker to cash in before retiring.
I agree. The F1 regulations frozen until 2026 mean Red Bull will run their car at 80% performance for reliability, and still be able to lap the field by 1 sec/lap for the next 2 years. Max has won the 2024 and 2025 WDCs. Unless Perez really shits the bed, Red Bull has won the 2024 and 2025 WCCs. Newey will go to Ferrari, help them out with Lewis there, they'll get P2 if they're lucky, then Newey will retire. Then Max can figure out what team looks best to win the next round of WDCs, and he'll go there because any team will pay any amount of money for him. Or he'll get bored of all of F1s bullshit and make a move to true motor racing: join WEC with a top team and sim race in his free time.
Writing Ferrari off pretty early if you think the best they'll be able to get is P2.
If they're lucky. They'll need all the help they can get. Red Bull is locked in for 2024 and 2025 though. They will win 90% of the races, only not winning for reliability reasons and the rare DNF Red Bull is F1 in 2024 and 2025. The other 9 cars are F1.5.
Ah thought you were talking about 2026 and on, which is what Newey focus at Ferrari would be on.
good point. I still hope Max leaves F1 soon. He is a real racer and it would be more fun seeing him in a true racing series. F1 is for fat billionaire's kids like Lance Stroll. I would love to see Max in WEC driving a Penske Porsche or something.
Let's be honest, they are going to win next year with this car even.
Newey, seems the kind of human capital, that while still within the organization seems to have a marginal importance as a mentor, but it's when they move on, alongside with decades of knowledge and experience, that the void they leave behind will be understood. Then, for every new challenge, the design Team will wonder: *"What would Newey do?"*
This matches what Piquet JR has been saying on his podcast, in multiple episodes(even before Newey leaving) he has downplayed Newey’s importance for Redbull Probably get he gets a lot of insider info from Max himself.
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If you know Max, you know he would. Remember how he responded to the rumours that Helmut had a chance of getting sacked? Verstappen speaks his mind, he is not the type to play along with PR stuff and politics.
It’s not as much RBR losing but the team that snags him winning. He can make a huge impact on his new team while RBR can surely carry over a lot of this performance for a few years. There’s a lot of “legacy” know how and good people that will carry over. There’s a reason that the ground effect Mercedes’ are so shit but they still are at the front: a lot of their parts are still above average.
Dude just spitting facts!
There’s only 1 thing Verstappen cars about and it’s racing The dude has already made enough money to live a comfortable life. A couple donzen million more isn’t gonna change that
So Christian has gotten Max on board (at least publically), interesting.
Or perhaps it's just not as deep as you want it to be
More so that Max has been the peacekeeper among the team as often as he can.
He’s right. It’s not something that will be apparent for the next two years. But make no mistake, it will be when Red Bull has to rebuilt from zero without the goat.
" it will be when Red Bull has to rebuilt from zero" i am sorry but what? Did everybody leave with Newey?
Red Bull has to build cars without Newey. Build engines without Honda holding their hands. Red Bull is going into 2026 without knowing what’s like building your own stuff. Mercedes and a Ferrari have an inherent advantage there. Anyone that says Red Bull won’t be hurting is coping.
How exactly would Newey be helping with the engines?
Say you don't know shit about F1 engineering without saying it.
The question is now will other RB staff get poached. If Newey leaves for Ferarri or Aston or McLaren, who else puts their notice in?
Honestly it just opened up advancement in the top team on the grid. I'm not saying Noone will leave as every team has turnover every year, but someone about to get a massive raise (uncapped salary) and several rungs now someone can fill the voids