Adrian Newey is helping the Red Bull team with Formula 1 race strategy decisions on the weekends where he attends to promote his RB17 hypercar, with his upcoming exit looming.
Newey has visited the Miami, Monaco and Silverstone races since his decision to leave Red Bull was announced at the beginning of May.
He will depart Red Bull in March 2025, with his final project for the team being finishing and helping sell the RB17 hypercar that was revealed publicly for the first time last week at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
In an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com about the RB17’s design process, Newey was asked what he had been doing with Red Bull at those races – his attendance an unusual development for high-profile engineers who have decided to leave teams as they are usually placed on gardening leave.
“When I have been – so Miami and Monaco [and Silverstone] – then [it’s about] primarily talking to the drivers a little bit,” Newey replied, explaining his interactions with Red Bull F1 race drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
“And then a bit involved in strategy through the races. But it's also been [about] meeting customers – 17 clients and customers.
“Because I think the point of this is it's very much an extension of the Formula 1 team [building the RB17 with Red Bull Advanced Technologies].
“And everybody, therefore, is involved not only in the 17 itself, but in how Red Bull goes about Formula 1 weekends.
“And that will continue regardless of my physically being present. Because of the way we're doing and also my son Harry [2015 BRDC Formula 4 runner-up, 2017-2018 Asian Le Mans Series champion and now RB17 customer manager], he will continue to work on 17 through to its completion and indeed beyond when I stop working here in March next year.
“Then I will still be fully involved in working with the guys on queries and I'll be attending track tests and so on and so forth.”
Newey also stated that his decision to leave Red Bull had not impacted the timeline for finishing the RB17, as that had “reached concept completion” in January 2024.
“What it's actually done is that it's meant that, because I'm kind of now out of Formula 1 since end of April, then it actually means that I can concentrate exclusively on 17 and really go into not just, if you like, the pure mechanical or the pure engineering details, but all the other peripheral things that we very much need to consider,” he added. “Such as: ease of servicing, servicing, life servicing, costs, longevity so that owners in 10-20 years’ time, can they still get the parts, will the suppliers still be around?
“So, really concentrating on all those kind of aspects that tend to not be considered or we hadn't perhaps considered early on, but as you get into the detail, become very important considerations so that the ownership experience can be as involving and pleasurable as possible.”
