Newey reveals why he’ll still be helping Red Bull with ‘passion project’ after his Aston Martin start date

Adrian Newey has revealed that he will continue to work on the Red Bull RB17 hypercar project even after his time with the Formula 1 team has come to an end, with the famed designer set to join Aston Martin in 2025.
It was announced back in May that Newey would depart Red Bull in the first quarter of next year, bringing his nearly 20-year stint at the Milton Keynes squad to a close, and much speculation then followed over where the Briton’s next destination would be.
READ MORE: Newey explains why he opted for ‘old school’ Aston Martin, rather than joining Hamilton in 2025 move to Ferrari
The questions were finally answered in September when Newey was confirmed to become Aston Martin’s new Managing Technical Partner, a role in which he will begin work on March 1 2025.
During an appearance on the High Performance Podcast, Newey was quizzed on how soon he would be able to join the drivers at the track and start to absorb the culture of the team, leading him to detail how he will remain involved with the RB17 even after his Aston Martin tenure begins.
“My work with Red Bull, I’ve been out of the Formula 1 team really since after Suzuka, whenever that was, [in] April,” the 65-year-old explained.
“But I’ve still been working hard on the RB17 track car, which has been a sort of side project/passion project really, which I’ve hugely enjoyed because it’s something just a little bit different to Formula 1.
“It’s applying all the same principles that I’ve learned from Formula 1, but to a different application. So I’m still working on that and I will still be working on that until the 1st of March, and then I will still be working on that after that 1st of March date but not from the factory as much.
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“It’ll be more talking to the guys by video conference or whatever, [talking via] emails. And then when the car starts track testing, which will be next summer, then [I’ll be] attending track tests.”
Newey went on to explain that he had been continuing to have new ideas about the RB17 project – something that he had noticed was happening less when it came to his work on Red Bull’s F1 car.
Asked about the signs of ‘going stale’ in the job, Newey responded: “You start feeling as if you’re going through the motions, as if you’re doing it on automatic, I think, is probably the best way of putting it.
“You don’t have those sort of waking up in the middle of the night [moments] – which can be a pain in the backside – but [where you] wake up in the middle of the night with a fresh ping of an idea or whatever.
“You’re just not feeling stimulated, I think that’s probably the easiest way of putting it. On the RB17, the track car, I was waking up with ideas, but I was starting to do less so on the Formula 1 car and that just felt wrong to me. I knew it was wrong.”
READ MORE: From March to Red Bull – How long did it take Newey to make an impact at his previous F1 teams?
As such, Newey has cited one of his reasons for leaving the squad and signing with Aston Martin as being the need for something fresh to focus on.
“I find that there comes a point where I feel as if I need new challenges,” he added. “The team’s reached a good level of maturity, it’s a very mature engineering organisation as well as the rest of the team, so in a way I’ve kind of done my bit.
“I started to feel as if we were going a little bit stale. I think the guys also felt as if perhaps they needed to show that they could do it on their own, so I thought, ‘Okay, let’s give them the chance and give myself a new challenge.’”
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