Christian Horner says Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey, despite splitting his time across various projects, continues "to live in the matrix" when it comes to Formula 1.
Newey rolled back part of his involvement in F1 several years ago with the advent of Red Bull Advanced Technologies, the technological arm of the Milton Keynes-based outfit that applies its engineering, design and production capabilities to special projects such as Red Bull's recent RB17 Hypercar.
However, at 64, Newey's brilliant engineering mind remains firmly entrenched in F1, although that won't remain the case forever. But Horner ensures that Red Bull have a deep bench behind them.
"It’s something that obviously we’ve looked at and discussed this period of time, and Adrian’s role as chief technical officer has evolved with Advanced Technologies now, and the RB17 that we announced earlier in the year," Horner told
"He splits his time across various projects, and that’s forced the other guys to step up.
"There’s Pierre Wache as technical director, and the technical team, and they’ve done a fantastic job.
"Obviously, Adrian feeds into that and works closely with that group.
"He’s got this encyclopedia of knowledge, but it’s great to see the strength and depth that we have technically and the way that they’ve delivered."
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Despite Newey's somewhat divided agenda, the man widely recognized as Grand Prix racing's greatest aerodynamicist is still "hands on" according to Horner.
Furthermore, in F1's digital age Newey remains the only engineer in the sport who continues to rely on his trusty drawing board rather than on a computer for all his design work.
"He lives in the matrix," Horner said. "He’s been the conductor of the technical orchestra for all these years now.
"He’s still very hands-on, he’s still at his drawing board. I think it’s probably the only drawing board in Formula 1, I had to argue with Ron Dennis to wrestle it out of McLaren [when Newey moved from the latter to Red Bull].
"Obviously highs and lows during all these years but it’s always been fun. It’s always been about the racing."
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