Red Bull after Newey: Falling apart, or strength in depth?

It wasn't so long ago that we thought Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari at the end of the year would be the stand-out story of 2024. But Wednesday's confirmation that legendary designer Adrian Newey is bowing out at Red Bull makes that driver move almost look like small potatoes.

The immediate reaction by experts and fans is that Newey's departure is little short of apocalyptic for the team that he's been such an intrinsic part of for the last 19 years, and that its reign as the dominant force in Formula 1 is effectively already over.

Certainly that's the view of Jos Verstappen, who told Dutch publication De Telegraaf that “The team is in danger of falling apart," adding: "I was afraid of that earlier this year.

“For internal peace, it is important that key people stay on board. That is not the case now," he explained. "Now Newey is leaving, and earlier this year it also looked like Helmut [Marko] would be sent away. For the future, that is not good.”

He certainly has a point. But the view from Newey is somewhat different, as the 65-year-old talked about this being the right time to hand over responsibility for Red Bull's car design to a new generation. If anyone knows what he's talking about on this point, it's surely him.

"Now is an opportune moment to hand that baton over to others and to seek new challenges for myself," Newey said on Wednesday. "The final stages of development of the RB17 are upon us, so for the remainder of my time with the team my focus will lie there."

• Read also: Red Bull confirms Newey's exit, maintains ties for 2024 races

Newey also spoke about "the many amazing people I have worked with at Red Bull in our journey over the last 18 years for their talent, dedication and hard work," and it is to this team of people that he will he handing over the aforementioned baton (or should that be poisoned chalice?)

While many of them have gone largely unreported and unnoticed by the public, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has been keen to talk up their contribution to the squad's recent success.

His point is clear: Newey might be departing, but the people who remain have played every bit as important a role in the development of the Red Bull car since 2022. This is no one man band, but rather a co-operative of talents committed to a deeply holistic effort to be the best in motorsport.

Aerodynamic chief Enrico Balbo has been the subject of particular praise from Horner, and technical director Pierre Wache's profile in charge of Red Bull's core team of design and aerodynamic engineers has also been in the ascendency according to The Race. 

As technical director in charge of the team's technical group, Wache reports directly to Horner and not to Newey, who hasn't been in that hands-on role for nearly a decade.

Newey is the big picture guy, the blue sky thinker who contributes as much or as little to the daily development process as he sees fit. That's not to understate Newey's impact: he's certainly not just another employee tasked with sorting out the aerodynamics.

His instinctual understanding of the tiny little details that make a disproportionately huge impact in a car's performance are unquestionably worth their weight in gold suspension rods. It's allowed the squad to be fast and nimble in incrementally improving and finessing their development.

Newey's vast experience was crucial to the team when ground effect aero came back into the sport. He knew the problems with porpoising from personal experience at Williams in the 80s and 90s and designed around them, while other teams like Mercedes fell into a bear pit of utter despond.

But ultimately Newey reports into Wache's technical group just like Balbo does. Just as chief designer Craig Skinner, head of performance engineering Ben Waterhouse and chief of car engineering Paul Monaghan do.

Newey is what in medical terms might be classified as a senior consultant, but he's not the person who makes the final decisions on car concept or manages the engineers on the ground. That's for others to take care of. And for now at least, those people are not going anywhere.

"I’m lucky enough to have a really good group of people at Milton Keynes and it’s a very good team," Newey told The Race in 2022. "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."

When he talked about the development of the RB18, Newey said that his area of involvement was "the suspension and some other bits and pieces". But that's to go too far the other direction in framing his work as just a few incidental bits and pieces. It was always much more than that.

In fact the impossibly sophisticated underfloor of the RB18 was a modern marvel, almost an artistic beauty rather than a feat of engineering, and that continued to be the case in its successors. It came from Newey knowing how to trade off downforce for grip and handling to optimum effect.

But it was Balbo who oversaw the creation of that underfloor, and it was the Red Bull research and development team that gave them the data to take Newey's basic concept and make it work on the track in the most demanding race environments.

With the rules having stayed essentially unchanged since 2022, the basic chassis design has evolved through into the RB19 and RB20 to keep Red Bull out of reach of its rivals. And yes, it was Newey's decisive vision that put them on the right path from the start while others went astray.

But the rules are about to change again. And for all his legendary status within the sport, there is no guarantee that Newey would be able to pull off the same trick next time around in 2026. Next year's car might have been the last hurrah for his design vision and philosophy, even if he had stayed at Milton Keynes.

So perhaps this really is the right time to bring one era to a close and find the New Newey to lead the team into the next one. Whoever takes that role will need to rely on the talents of Wache, Balbo, Skinner, Waterhouse, Monaghan et al just as Newey did.

Newey deserves huge credit for all that Red Bull has achieved over the last two decades. But not all the credit. And while his departure is going to be a wrench for the team, it's not the end of the world as long as the rest of the talent stay where they are.

The question therefore isn't about Newey's technical skills, but the power of his exalted reputation within the sport to attract and retain such incredibly talented people in orbit around him, committed to the Red Bull cause.

Looking towards the future, Ferrari is pulling out the stops to convince Newey to pass through the golden gates of Maranello, with Scuderia boss Fred Vasseur reportedly quietly meeting with the Briton earlier this week as the Italian outfit steps up its efforts.

However, without a cohesive core of proficient engineers to which to pitch his thoughts and ideas, there is no certainty that Newey will enjoy anything like the level of success that he has experienced at Red Bull.

Equally there's no guarantees, no assurances, no black or white answers to the question of what's in store for Red Bull in a post-Newey future.

Whatever happens it will be a challenge for Horner, an opportunity for their rivals - and for fans, possibly the most exciting prospect for change in F1 for years.

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