Newey allowed to join Red Bull earlier

The former McLaren technical director, who is switching to Red Bull Racing as chief technical officer, had originally planned to start work at Milton Keynes at the end of February.

However, with his contract at McLaren coming to an end this week and his former employers giving consent to the change of plans, Newey will now start working for Red Bull Racing at the start of next week.

The new date will be a bonus for Red Bull Racing, as Newey will be able to provide some input into development on their new Ferrari-powered RB2 before the start of the season.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with this week's Autosport, Newey said it will be a strange experience for him joining a new team when the car he helped design, the McLaren MP4-21, is already complete.

"For me it's obviously going to be a bit of a funny year, because I will not now be involved with the development of the car I was most heavily involved in," he said. "But I've been in that position before, when I went from Williams to McLaren (in 1997)."

Newey has said he is excited about the prospect of working with Mark Smith, Red Bull Racing's technical director

"Mark Smith very much enjoys the technical management side of the engineering structure, while I really enjoy working in a hands-on way with the engineers, and also try to spend a reasonable amount of time myself at the drawing board or whatever. I think we can have a very good partnership."

Newey has also told this week's Autosport that David Coulthard's involvement at the team was key in his decision to turn his back on McLaren.