Newey said no to Mercedes and Ferrari in 2014

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Red Bull chief designer Adrian Newey has revealed that he turned down an offer to join Mercedes in 2014.

Newey told the BBC that he had been approached by both Mercedes and Ferrari after Red Bull's fortunes abruptly waned following their fourth constructors title the year before.

“We had this change in engine regulations in for the 2014 season," Newey recalled. "We’d ended up with this situation where we have a big disparity in power unit performance.

"With our particular engine supplier we seemed a bit doomed," he continued. "I got quite depressed about that."

Sensing that Newey might be receptive to offers, Red Bull's rivals made contact to see if they could persuade him to jump ship.

"Ferrari approached [me] as did another team - Mercedes," he revealed. "And it’s kind of make your mind up time."

Newey had joined Red Bull in 2006, having previously played a key role in taking both Williams and McLaren to title success. He said that having been a part of Red Bull from so early on was a big factor in his decision to stay put.

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"I guess Red Bull, having built it up from nothing, I felt a paternal bond to the team," he said. "To the people that worked there. I enjoyed a very close and strong relationship with [team principal] Christian Horner."

He said that as a result, the idea of leaving Red Bull "kind of felt like walking out on a family."

Newey's disillusionment with the sport's engine regulations meant he spent time working on projects outside Formula 1. To this day, he's still unhappy about the technical direction of the sport.

"The new hybrids, which I think have not in truth done the sport any favours," he said. "It’s a bad thing.

"I think we’ve been lucky this year. We’ve ended up with two teams - Mercedes and Ferrari - battling for the championship," he pointed out.

"But it’s been the first time in the hybrid era we’ve had two times fighting for the world championship."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.