Formula 1 News: Newey exit 'not good' for Red Bull's future

(GMM) Max Verstappen’s father has reacted with alarm to the now-confirmed news that Adrian Newey is leaving Red Bull. The good news is that the real brains behind the Red Bull car’s speed, Piere Wache, will not be following Newey out the door.

Christian Horner and Jos Verstappen in Bahrain. Jos tells Horner he should resign

F1’s most famous and respected technical mind will leave the dominant team that has been riddled by internal turmoil in 2024 “in the first quarter of 2025” – almost a full year before his contract was due to run out.

“I feel now is an opportune moment to hand that baton over to others and to seek new challenges for myself,” said the 65-year-old in the official statement.

Former F1 team owner and boss Eddie Jordan, who Newey credits for being his “manager”, hinted in a podcast that his friend will probably step away from F1 for a time.

But Newey is strongly linked with a move to join Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari, although Aston Martin and – more quietly – Mercedes are also tipped as potential destinations.

It is reported that Newey will still attend selected grands prix in 2024, but amid rumors that Verstappen could be spooked by the news, his father and co-manager Jos said on Wednesday: “This is what I was afraid of.

“It is important that key personnel remain on board,” the former F1 driver told De Telegraaf. “This is not the case now. Newey is leaving – at the beginning of the year it seemed that Helmut (Marko) would be fired.

“It’s not good for the future of the team.”

Auto Motor und Sport believes Newey has successfully negotiated that he will not have to serve lengthy ‘gardening leave’ if he does join another team.

“This means that he can throw himself straight into developing a car for the new 2026 regulations,” the German magazine claims.

Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport, meanwhile, said Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache will not be following Newey out of the exit door.

And De Telegraaf reports that Newey will be in Miami this weekend, even though he is no longer employed by Red Bull’s Formula 1 team. Instead, he will take part in promotional events to promote the RB17 hypercar.

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Who is Pierre Wache?

Pierre Wache, Chief Engineer of Performance Engineering at Red Bull Racing looks on, on the grid during the F1 Grand Prix of Belgium at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on July 30, 2023 in Spa, Belgium. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images) // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

Pierre Wache is a French F1 engineer who earned a doctorate in fluid dynamics from the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine.

After graduating in 2001, he directly dipped his toes in F1, working with tire manufacturer Michelin. He worked as an engineer, focusing on the interaction between the tire and the track.
After Michelin left F1 in 2006, Pierre Wache joined the BMW Sauber team as a performance engineer responsible for tires and suspension. When BMW also left the sport in 2009, he was promoted to head of vehicle performance at Sauber.
The French engineer once again jumped ship and moved to Red Bull as chief engineer, focusing on vehicle performance. Soon enough, he was promoted to performance director. By that time, he had started working closely with Adrian Newey, who had already been with the Austrian team since 2006 and recognized Wache’s brilliance.
In 2018, Wache became Newey’s right-hand man and took on the role of technical director. He, along with his senior Adrian Newey, supervised the design and overall production of the dominant Red Bull F1 cars of recent years. His earlier work with tires and suspensions is one of the reasons (plus Max Verstappen’s skill at also managing tires) why the Red Bull cars are so good at managing tire degradation.
He has been one of the integral parts of Red Bull, helping them develop some of the most dominant cars. He was part of the development of the RB16B, which famously allowed Max Verstappen to win his maiden world championship in the intense 2021 F1 season.

Back in December 2023, Christian Horner talked about how Red Bull was not completely reliant on Adrian Newey.

Speaking to Motorsport.com, Horner initially praised Newey and stated that the aero wizard played a massive part in Red Bull’s success story. However, he stated that the team was not reliant on Newey and added that the design team was led by technical officer Pierre Wache.

“Adrian is a big part of this team and big part of what we’ve achieved. But of course, his role has evolved over the last few years and the technical team beneath him led by Pierre Wache, they’re doing a wonderful job and so that they’re not reliant on Adrian,” Horner said.

Theory: Newey left Red Bull because he realized he was no longer needed for the F1 program because Wache’s brilliance usurped Newey’s. He no longer felt loved.