Formula 1 News: Wache, not Newey, the brains behind Red Bull (Update)

As an update to our original article, below, Mark Hughes of The-Race published an article titled “Who’s really behind Red Bull’s dominant F1 cars?” that supports exactly what we originally said, Adrian Newey was only a small but important part of Red Bull’s Brain Trust.

Key excerpts from the article:

Christian Horner has for a couple of years now been very keen to publicly recognize the entire design group, singling out aerodynamic chief Enrico Balbo for particular praise. Technical director Pierre Wache is also rightly proud of the RB18, 19 and 20, creations of his team of design and aerodynamic engineers.

It’s commonly assumed that Newey is in charge of all things technical. He is not. Pierre Wache is the technical director and reports directly to Horner, not   Newey hasn’t fulfilled the role of technical director for almost a decade. He is free to contribute as much or as little as he chooses.

Newey feeds into the technical group, as does Balbo, as does chief designer Craig Skinner, head of performance engineering Ben Waterhouse and chief of car engineering Paul Monaghan. Wache co-ordinates the programs of the various departments.

Newey is a concepts man, not simply an Aerodynamicist. His intuitive big-picture understanding of what makes a car fast, of what the various sensitivities are and how they change through time and different regulations, can be gold dust. Especially in a time of regulation change.

His deep understanding of car dynamics – and not just aerodynamics – has several times given the team a quick and effective fix to what might otherwise have been much longer-term problems. Unconstrained by either in-the-box thinking or even the contractual obligation to deliver, he’s a super-senior consultant, in effect. Even if his contract classes him as an employee.

He is not the guy to decide what he wants a car concept to be and getting everyone to follow his lead on that. That is not his personality or his job. He is not leading. He is supplying the gold dust. As and when it arrives. The others in the more traditional roles have the responsibility of ensuring the car is conceived and designed based on the best information they have.

When The Race interviewed Newey in early 2022, his answer to the question of how much he actually designed of the RB18 was as follows: “That’s a difficult one to answer. I’m lucky enough to have a really good group of people at Milton Keynes and it’s a very good team.

“All F1 teams are big engineering teams but in terms of the involvement in meetings, I put my tuppence-worth in but it’s the guys who bat those ideas around and maybe come up with a list and go away and do the work. Specifically, on this car [the RB18] I did the front and rear suspension and a few other bits and pieces.”

Newey didn’t design them. He didn’t even do the research. But he set the group of exceptional engineers off down a hugely productive path first time, without any of the flailing about seen almost everywhere else. Would that engineering team have set off on that path were it not for Newey?

Pierre Wache is the design chief at Red Bull Racing and has led the design of the last two dominating Red Bull F1 Cars.  Adrian Newey is old school and just there to bounce ideas off.  Newey felt left out, washed up, and feels it is time to move on. Wache makes the Red Bull cars fly!

(GMM) Two top Formula 1 teams have played down sensational and widespread new reports suggesting Red Bull Racing is set to lose Adrian Newey.

From De Telegraaf in the Netherlands to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport and the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport – and a slew of other authoritative specialist sources – it is widely rumored that star designer Newey, 65, has told Red Bull he is moving on.

The reports suggest the highly sought-after British technical mind, believed to be earning about $10 million at Red Bull annually, has grown impatient with the ongoing power struggle and Christian Horner scandal.

But amid Aston Martin’s reported huge-money offer, and even stronger speculation linking Newey with a move to Ferrari, it also appears that Newey is not happy about being shuffled aside at Red Bull for the RB17 hypercar project.

La Gazzetta correspondent Paolo Filisetti believes Aston Martin’s offer to Newey is worth a staggering $100 million in total.

A Red Bull spokesperson, however, told Agence France-Presse: “Adrian is under contract until at least the end of 2025 and we are not aware of him joining another team.”

One theory is that Newey is prepared to simply sit out 2025 altogether – and even then have to spend another full year after that on mandatory post-contract ‘gardening leave’.

The Newey rumors shifted into a high gear recently when he was spotted at the Ferrari-owned Mugello circuit for a track day in high performance cars.

Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur dismissed the gossip with a joke: “If everyone who tests at Mugello sign with Ferrari, we’ll have to buy a bus to bring them to us.”

When asked about the Newey rumors on the F1 aan Tafel program, well-known Dutch motor racing insider Frans Verschuur said: “Adrian is only at Red Bull in name only.

“If Red Bull lets him go, they will at least save on wages. (Pierre) Wache is the man who actually builds the car, not Newey,” he added.

“His time has also passed,” Verschuur continued. “Just as I think (Lewis) Hamilton’s time has passed.”