Newey Could Take a Break

McLaren say technical director Adrian Newey could take a break from Formula One when his contract runs out this season but he will not be moving to another team.

Newey, 46, is one of McLaren's brightest assets, a designer who oversaw a series of Championship-winning cars at Williams in the 1990s before moving to McLaren and helping them win titles.

"I think Adrian certainly has said he has no intention of going to another Formula One team," McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh said at the launch of the new MP4-20 car.

"He's also reached a point where he wants to have the opportunity to consider other things but I think often when people get to that point, to ease pressure on themselves they say 'I might stop or I might carry on' but we'll see.

"I personally doubt whether Adrian is going to walk away and I don't believe that he's intending to go to another Formula One team, although I'm sure that won't stop other teams talking to him," he added.

"In reality Adrian has got to be somewhere that he finds challenging and enjoyable but at the moment it's not been an issue that is much discussed within McLaren."

There has been speculation that Newey, who was close to joining Jaguar in 2001, might return to Williams but he has also talked of designing a yacht for the America's Cup.

"I've been in dialogue with Adrian for several months and there are various options that we are considering," said team boss Ron Dennis, who mentioned the possibility of a "creative regeneration break".

"Whatever follows on from Adrian's involvement with McLaren, which may continue, it most definitely will have as a starting point a time where he builds up his creative juices again," added Dennis.

"We are in dialogue, it's a conversation between Adrian and myself and we are under no time pressure at all other than those pressures that we put on ourselves."

Whitmarsh said McLaren had in any case built up a strong engineering team.

"We've put together an organisation that could potentially succeed him," he said.

Dennis's future has also been the subject of speculation, but Whitmarsh said he did not expect the Briton to stand down soon.

"Over the last 10 years in a range of conversations with Ron I always tell him that I believe we will be zimmer-framing him across to the pit wall in his 70s," he said.

"I can't imagine Ron being disengaged completely from the adrenalin of Formula One and certainly I do not believe that Ron will be standing down as chairman of the McLaren group any time soon and certainly not during the course of this year."