Newey Warned Red Bull’s Missteps Would Cost Time

Adrian Newey identified Red Bull’s development errors late 2023, linking them to inexperience and warning of costly performance consequences ahead.

Adrian Newey was not surprised by the difficulties faced by Red Bull in 2024. The former Milton Keynes car designer left the team in April to join Aston Martin F1, having already noticed earlier that the team was heading down the wrong development path.

“Clearly, McLaren in particular, and Ferrari as well, developed their cars and did a very good job,” Newey told Auto Motor und Sport. “But from what I could see, the 2024 car and the latest upgrades of 2023 were becoming harder to drive.”

“Of course, Max could handle that. It didn’t suit him, but he could manage it, which wasn’t the case for Checo. So, by the end of 2023, we began to see a bigger performance gap between the two teammates, Max and Checo.”

“This continued into the first part of 2024, but the car was still fast enough to cope with it. It was something that started to concern me, but it didn’t seem to concern many others within the organization.”

Newey believes Red Bull should have changed direction sooner: “From what I can see from the outside, the Red Bull guys, and this is not a criticism, I think they just, perhaps due to a lack of experience, kept going in the same direction. And the problem grew to the point where even Max struggled to drive.”

The engineer thinks Red Bull was extracting good performance from the car, which may have led them to downplay the issues with the RB20: “Setups can mask problems to a certain extent, but the problem is always there.”

“For me, setups are more simply about optimizing the car’s characteristics and, of course, to some extent, the driver’s as well, but I think that’s overstated. It’s mainly about fine-tuning the car’s characteristics and, of course, adjusting from track to track, depending on the nature of the circuit.”

Newey explains that the bouncing experienced by current F1 cars is due to the absence of sliding skirts on modern ground-effect cars, as was the case in the 1980s. This technology was banned because it was considered too dangerous.

“A ground-effect car without movable side parts, like the old sliding-skirt cars, will always be highly sensitive to aerodynamic instabilities. You start generating very low pressures under the floor.”

“But you have all these leaks coming in from the sides, potentially creating significant losses and problems as you get closer to the ground. However, it’s also an effective way to generate downforce. You’re always trying to find a balance between aerodynamic load and consistency. It’s a tough challenge.”