Exclusive: F1's "irreplaceable" design king Newey on Red Bull's edge

Adrian Newey won titles at Williams and McLaren before helping to build the Red Bull powerhouse. And as he tells Autosport in an exclusive, wide-ranging interview, he’s certainly not done yet…

The list of Formula 1 accomplishments not featuring the influence of Adrian Newey gets ever-smaller. And in 2023, the Red Bull RB19 finally wrestled the mantle of ‘F1’s most dominant car’ away from the 1988 McLaren MP4/4. For the second time since Newey’s switch from the Woking team in 2006, Red Bull is dominating grand prix racing.

Newey has been in his current post of chief technical officer since joining the team. His role means he sits above current technical director Pierre Wache, but isn’t overly involved in the squad’s process side of its day-to-day engineering, preferring to concentrate on development aspects. Team principal Christian Horner recently explained how Newey’s role has “evolved over the last few years”, and that he “has the ability to come in, come out and work on other projects, and that’s part of the evolution of any team”.

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Author Alex Kalinauckas

Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.

A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.