McLaren CEO Zak Brown has quipped that Red Bull would love to have outgoing Formula 1 designer Adrian Newey “around the table” to help solve its ongoing issues.
Red Bull announced earlier this term that Newey had communicated his desire to bring an end to his illustrious near two-decade spell with the reigning F1 champions.
The revelation that F1’s most successful design guru will depart Red Bull in 2025 has coincided with the team encountering a slump in competitiveness with its RB20.
Red Bull’s crushing dominance during the opening races has diminished as balance woes have instigated a dip which has seen McLaren close the gap to eight points.
Brown, whose McLaren team poached Rob Marshall last term, claimed at the time that Newey’s choice would prompt more colleagues to chase an exit from Red Bull.
The American suspects that it is no coincidence that Red Bull has experienced a dramatic plight as it has been publicised that numerous senior figures will be leaving.
“Ultimately I don’t know what’s going on in there,” Brown told Sky Sports F1.
“Adrian Newey, I bet it would be nice to have him around the conference room table right now looking at how to improve the car.
“Jonathan Wheatley is still there but he’s moving on [to become Audi’s Team Principal in 2025]; Rob Marshall has joined us.
“You’ve got three of the most senior people that were in Red Bull – three huge contributors. It can’t not be a loss.
“We all have bad pit stops, but it does seem to be that things are a bit more destabilised than they have been recently.”
However, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has quashed the suggestion that the Austrian outfit’s downturn can be attributed to Newey’s reduced involvement.
“I think we would have had all of these issues because the issues were already there, and one man’s input could never be so dramatic so quickly,” Horner retorted.
“This started to really highlight itself in Miami, and Adrian was plugged in up until Friday of Miami, so there’s no way it would have been impacted so quickly.”
Meanwhile, Brown has reiterated that Newey – who worked at McLaren from 1997 until 2005, delivering three titles – will not be returning to the Woking-based squad.
“He always returns my calls,” Brown added. “We’re good friends but as I said I am very happy with the race team that I have.”
Instead, Newye is touted to have agreed a lucrative contract with Aston Martin, which would see him commence work at the Silverstone-based squad in March 2025.
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