F1: Head of RBR denies that internal crisis motivated designer to leave | formula 1

If the crisis that marked the beginning of 2024 at RBR due to accusations of misconduct against boss Christian Horner seems to have been overcome, the team now has another problem: the departure of designer Adrian Newey, after almost 19 years of partnership. But contrary to what was reported by the German and British press, Horner guarantees that the crisis behind the scenes at the team was not the reason for the engineer’s decision.

– No, absolutely not (that was it). I think this (Newey’s departure) had been predicted for some time. There was a discussion about 12 months ago that perhaps it was time for Adrian to consider stepping away. So I know he’s been thinking about this for a while and it was something we had to plan. And what better time for this than the good phase we have experienced over the last two seasons? – declared Horner at the team managers’ press conference at the Miami GP, this Friday.

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Newey will still participate in some races until the end of 2024 to help RBR; after leaving definitively; will continue to support the Milton Keynes automaker’s hypercar project in the United Kingdom, the RB17.

“BBC F1” even reported that the engineer’s lawyers were negotiating his early departure so that, in 2025, he could sign with another team. People with technical positions in F1 must wait a period of quarantine, after leaving a team, before joining another.

When informed about the departure of the rival’s designer, Lewis Hamilton even commented on the possibility of working with the engineer at Ferrari, his destination next year. The BBC even named the Italian team as Newey’s favorite option.

Newey began working in F1 in 1980 as an intern, when the ground effect (reintroduced in the 2022 technical regulations, in which the majority of the aerodynamic load is generated by the floor of the cars) was still in force in the category’s vehicles.

He worked at March, Williams and McLaren, designing championship-winning cars such as Nigel Mansell’s FW14B from Williams, from 1992, and the MP41/13 from Mika Hakkinen’s first title with McLaren, in 1998. The engineer signed with RBR in 2006 and was the creative mind behind the single-seaters that guided Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to four and three titles respectively.

Ben Sulayem even asked Max Verstappen, RBR driver, to publicly support Horner, a request denied by the three-time champion. His father, former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, argued with the team boss and declared that RBR would “explode” if Christian remained in charge. The Dutchman came to his father’s defense, stating that Jos is “not a liar” – although he avoided strong opinions about the case.

The crisis took on the air of a struggle for strength due to Jos’s public support for Marko’s authority. Horner was accompanied at the race in Sakhir by Chalerm Yoovidhya, Thai billionaire and main shareholder of the company that gives RBR its name.

His supposed rival has the support of Oliver Mintzlaff, director of the six-time F1 champion’s parent company who was also at his side in the Saudi race; and the family of Dietrich Mateschitz, team founder who died in 2022.