Adrian Newey has responded to Christian Horner’s comments, in which Horner claimed he would ‘abandon ship’ at the ‘first sign of adversity’ with Red Bull.
Adrian Newey now serves as Aston Martin Team Principal, but he was a key member of the Red Bull team for two decades. His 2025 departure shocked many, as the Briton had served as Chief Technical Officer, and his engineering was essential to Red Bull’s success.
Around the time of Newey’s departure, there was considerable discourse about internal politics at Red Bull and allegations against the then-Team Principal, Christian Horner.
Recently, Horner has been on a press tour for his upcoming memoir, Drive. With several public appearances and interviews, Horner reflected on prior F1 eras, including 2014. The former Team Principal claimed that Newey was prepared to “abandon ship” in 2014, when Red Bull struggled at the start of F1’s turbo-hybrid era. The Milton Keynes-based team had a tough year as it struggled with the Renault power unit and dropped down to second in the Constructors’ Championship, a whopping 296 points behind Mercedes.
“I think 2014, as a chassis designer then, if the PU manufacturer has a bad year, that happens, and you accept it,” Newey said when asked about Horner’s comments.
“If the PU manufacturer has a bad year and doesn’t appear to have any intention of trying to address the problem, that’s altogether a different matter, and that’s quite bleak at that point. And that’s the situation that, unfortunately, I faced in 2014.
“As it turned out, that situation didn’t really change with that supplier until we changed to Honda in 2019. So you can imagine my pain and frustration at that. I don’t think Christian fully understood that, perhaps. But I was in conversation.”
Horner: ‘I couldn’t rely on him any more’
Red Bull continued its uphill battle with its Renault power unit and eventually switched to Honda in 2019. While the team was still lagging behind Mercedes’ dominance, it settled into the Honda partnership after a couple of years. Eventually, this helped the team begin its own dominance, with Max Verstappen at the top.
Despite the good times that came years later, Horner looked back at the 2014 struggles and explained that at the time it was difficult to “rely on” Newey.
“At the first sign of adversity, Adrian wanted to abandon ship,” Horner explained. “I felt very sad about that. I couldn’t rely on him any more. Our partnership was not as solid as I’d previously believed.”
Although the era brought difficulties for the team and its internal dynamics, Horner and Newey still have a relationship to this day.
“The rest of it, I really can’t comment,” Newey responded when quizzed on whether he had a conversation with Horner about his comments.
“But Christian and I remain friends, and, as many of you know, I am his godfather to his daughter Olivia.”
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