How F1 teams got on after Newey's departure - and what Red Bull should expect to face

A change of speed, a change of style, a change of scene - with no regrets? When anybody with considerable prestige chooses to depart familiar ground and lay down fresh roots elsewhere, it opens two groups to a modicum of uncertainty and awkward teething problems. How will a new environment respond to their influence, and will the old one find an adequate replacement - or will their mark remain indelible for a number of years?

These are the subsequent effects that Adrian Newey will have on his new workplace - Aston Martin - and his old one at Red Bull. His future role at Aston Martin has been explored plenty since the announcement of his move last year, and he'll start in earnest in a month's time at the team to help inform its direction for the 2026 regulations. But how will Red Bull deal with his absence?

There are two extreme points of view here: one, that Newey's thumbprint on the Red Bull handrail will linger and the Milton Keynes squad will be unable to find an adequate replacement. Conversely, the other school of thought is that Newey's influence at the team had waned anyway, and that it'll be business as usual at the team. One man's departure shouldn't leave a 1,000-strong workforce in the lurch.

As ever, the truth is somewhere in between. Newey's technical leadership had a vast effect on how Red Bull tackled the ground-effect aerodynamic regulations introduced for 2022, but his was not an all-encompassing diktat; there is a wealth of people led by technical director Pierre Wache who all contributed to the team's mighty successes over the past four years, and they should be given their flowers equally.

Of course, one can peruse through history and note the effect of Newey's departures - and, for the purposes of this column, we will. But rather than hurl together some evidence, hold it up on a plate and suggest "make of that what you will", we'll attempt to derive some kind of conclusion to how Red Bull is set with a Newey-less future.

We're not going to review his time at Fittipaldi or Team Haas (the Carl Haas one, not the unrelated operation with a similar name that operates today) as his role at both teams was not particularly senior. Both teams did go down the drain after Newey left but, in those cases, correlation does not approximate to causation.

With budgets being slashed, Newey left the team amid its demise

Photo by: LAT Photographic

March/Leyton House - Newey sacked as funding dries up

The first Formula 1 car borne from Adrian Newey's neural impulses was constructed at March: the 881, a dainty machine enrobed in teal. It managed two podiums in 1988, one at Belgium and one at Portugal thanks to the sterling efforts of Ivan Capelli, who also briefly led the Japanese Grand Prix and gave Alain Prost a fright before retiring with an ill-timed failure. Newey stated in his book, How to Build a Car, that Capelli's car fired up when the team had got it back - and that the Italian suggested that it was possible he'd knocked the ignition switch while shifting gears. But that anecdote is, well, merely anecdotal...

In any case, the follow-up CG891 was supposed to be a significant upgrade - instead, it was unreliable, inconsistent, and overwhelmingly difficult to get a tune out of when it came to trialling set-ups. Further to that, the follow-up CG901 was essentially a de-bugged version of the previous year's car, although struggled to qualify for races until the car was upgraded with a new front wing and diffuser. At this time, March had become Leyton House following the buy-in of Japanese property magnate Akira Akagi, but was now trying to cut costs at the behest of a new financial director - Simon Keeble, who clashed with Newey. Keeble elected to show Newey the door before the debut of the new aero parts, who gladly acquiesced having received a job offer from Williams.

1991's CG911 was penned by Chris Murphy and Gustav Brunner around an Ilmor engine, which proved to be particularly combustible and led to just two instances of the car crossing the finish line in the opening nine rounds. Capelli scored a point at Hungary, but funds dried up when Akagi was arrested. Thus, the car was updated to B-specification for '92 as the team reverted to its March branding, but the season's sole highlight came with Karl Wendlinger's fourth-place finish at Canada - its last ever points finish. Instead, March's 1992 efforts were more notable for the continual revolving door of small sponsors hurled upon the car as it lived an increasingly hand-to-mouth existence. The team ultimately perished on the eve of the 1993 season.

The Newey departure effect: Probably minimal, given that the team was approaching dire straits in any case. There's little chance that Newey would have been allowed to tinker excessively with a design with the increasing cashflow issues.

Newey never truly cracked the inner fold of the top management at Williams and departed as a result

Photo by: Andre Vor / Sutton Images

Williams - Subsequent downfall after lack of consultation over Frentzen move

Newey believed that he had his feet under Williams' top table, and become a third element to the Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head dyad that had led the team since its inception. But his assumption was proven wrong by the signing of Heinz-Harald Frentzen to replace Damon Hill, a decision that did not involve Newey's input. As Newey tells it, when Head was confronted on the plane back from 1996 Belgian Grand Prix, the ebullient technical director simply responded, "ah yes, Adrian, I've been meaning to tell you...".

Perhaps Newey was naive to assume that Williams and Head would truly let him into their inner sanctum, even if he had a contract dictating that he should be privy to such decisions. Newey penned the title-winning 1997 car, the FW19, and then left to join McLaren.

This was the turning point for Williams. Its follow-up effort in 1998, the Winfield-liveried FW20, was not a success as the team struggled to produce a competitive car for the narrow-track regulations - nor was the Mecachrome engine, essentially the previous year's Renault V10, on a par with the new Ferrari and Mercedes powerplants that underpinned the championship contenders. Williams improved during the early years of the BMW era and contended for the title in 2003, but fell away in the second half of the decade. When BMW bought Sauber ahead of 2006 and left the British team, it was relegated to a series of customer deals and later taking pay drivers to keep the dwindling outfit afloat.

It's only in recent years that the team's financial situation has improved, but years of underinvestment in its facilities at Grove has triggered a lengthy rejuvenation process under James Vowles' watch. It'll be a long time before Williams can return to where it was before Newey left but, if McLaren's recent rebirth is an adequate demonstration of a sleeping giant being roused, it's certainly an achievable feat with the right people.

The Newey departure effect: Probably larger than Williams or Head had ever envisaged. Without Newey to capitalise on the BMW era, the drivers were blessed with a powerful engine but a mixed-bag range of chassis designs that eventually led to its fall down the order over the next 10 years. Results picked up when Pat Symonds was installed as technical director in the 2010s, but finances precluded the team from truly capitalising on his expertise and the Mercedes powertrains.

Another management clash developed at McLaren, but the team continued to fight for titles immediately post-Newey

McLaren - Enter the matrix, exit the Newey

Newey endured a fractious relationship with Ron Dennis, and clashed on occasion due to their conflicting personalities. Newey, who largely disliked working with order and structure, felt shackled by Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh's patented matrix management system. Although Newey was almost tempted to Jaguar in 2001 and got as far as signing a memorandum of understanding that he would join, the deal was pulled at the last minute when McLaren offered him a bumper contract to stay.

But the tipping point emerged when the projected 2003 car, the MP4-18, was so problematic that it scarcely saw the light of day; private testing threw up myriad issues with reliability and the aerodynamic platform, leading the team to persist with a reworked version of its MP4-17 from the previous year. Newey wanted to rework the car in its entirety for 2004, but Whitmarsh decreed that the MP4-18 was to be made reliable and pushed out for the start of the following season. This, as the MP4-19A, was not turned into a race winner until vast aero changes were made - at this juncture, Newey elected that it was time to leave and take the plunge with Red Bull after penning the MP4-20 for 2005.

This was a rapid car, but perhaps best termed as a glass cannon; Renault's more reliable R25 took the championship honours as the more fleet-of-foot MP4-20 was significantly more prone to breaking down. While McLaren remained in contention for titles after Newey's departure, it was also subject to glaring moments of technical inadequacy: the Spygate saga, the poor start to 2009's regulatory package, poor quality control in 2012, and the subsequent downfall from 2013 onwards as the chassis design capabilities suffered.

The decline continued until Dennis was ousted as CEO and replaced by Zak Brown, who began recruiting to bring the team of which he'd been such an effusive supporter back to the top. With the installation of Andrea Stella as team principal, this has now been achieved with 2024's constructors' title.

The Newey departure effect: In itself, Newey's departure was perhaps not quite as crippling versus that at Williams and, in truth, he'd had his own fair share of blunders in car design after the initial promise shown in 1998 and 1999. Instead, McLaren's post-Newey downfall stems from overly rigid structures in the design department, and Dennis being slightly behind the times in his second spell as team principal.

Red Bull had almost all of 2024 to prepare for life without Newey

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

How will Red Bull get on?

The depth of talent at Red Bull should mitigate Newey's departure from the team and, if anything, the designers at Milton Keynes should now get the individual credit that they have deserved during its recent domination. 2026 will present the ultimate litmus test of this; if the team can beat Aston Martin, then perhaps it'll be judged differently over the past few seasons - there, success has so often been credited to the efforts of one, not many.

In theory, it already has experience without his hand on the tiller, as he focused more on external projects towards the end of the previous ruleset. And this gives other operators in the aero and chassis departments a chance to step out of his shadow and shine, emboldening the next generation of would-be design greats.

As for Aston Martin? Newey's experience will offer much-needed direction as it appears to have lost its way over the past year, and allow those at the team to make the most of the new facilities at Silverstone. Lawrence Stroll has grand ambitions for the team, and signing Newey should shortcut a lot of the time spent way-finding towards the front of the field - a shortcut that Red Bull no longer needs.

History does dictate that Red Bull will suffer a decline but, as the most recent of the three examples shows, McLaren continued to be successful until it encountered its own organisational issues - issues that Newey scarcely would have done much about. Perhaps Red Bull will suffer, but it would be remiss of the team not to have put together a succession plan for a post-Newey world. It already has the talent producing great cars, but it certainly has a point to prove against the mainstream suggestion that its title-winning cars from the past four years are purely Newey's concoctions. This is the chance to dispel that theory for good.

How will Newey impact Aston Martin?

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images