Newey sheds light on post-Red Bull involvement with RB17 project

Adrian Newey has explained how he will remain involved with the development of Red Bull’s RB17 hypercar even after his subsequent move to Aston Martin.

Newey is set to begin his new role as Managing Technical Partner at Aston Martin on March 1, 2025, opening a new – and likely the final – chapter in his illustrious career as the greatest designer in the history of Formula 1.

In 2022, Red Bull’s Advanced Technologies division unveiled plans for a £5 million hypercar bearing Newey's signature engineering touch, a very exclusive track only machine with a strictly limited production run of only 50 units.

Despite his career shift to Aston Martin F1, Newey’s passion for the RB17 project means he will continue to offer his input during the car’s final design phase and at the inception of its development on the track.

Speaking on a recent High Performance podcast, Newey provided insight into his ongoing work with Red Bull and the RB17.

“My work with Red Bull, I’ve been out of the Formula 1 team really since after Suzuka, whenever that was, [in] April,” the 65-year-old explained.

“But I’ve still been working hard on the RB17 track car, which has been a sort of side project/passion project really, which I’ve hugely enjoyed because it’s something just a little bit different to Formula 1.”

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Newey elaborated on what makes the RB17 project so unique for him.

“It’s applying all the same principles that I’ve learned from Formula 1, but to a different application.

“So I’m still working on that and I will still be working on that until the 1st of March, and then I will still be working on that after that 1st of March date but not from the factory as much.

“It’ll be more talking to the guys by video conference or whatever, [talking via] emails. And then when the car starts track testing, which will be next summer, then [I’ll be] attending track tests.”

Though no longer in the day-to-day F1 grind, Newey shared how the RB17 reignited his creative spark.

He mentioned that while he felt his contributions to Red Bull Racing’s F1 cars had begun to stagnate, his passion for the RB17 remained strong.

“You start feeling as if you’re going through the motions, as if you’re doing it on automatic, I think, is probably the best way of putting it,” he explained.

“You don’t have those sort of waking up in the middle of the night [moments] – which can be a pain in the backside – but [where you] wake up in the middle of the night with a fresh ping of an idea or whatever.

“You’re just not feeling stimulated, I think that’s probably the easiest way of putting it.

“On the RB17, the track car, I was waking up with ideas, but I was starting to do less so on the Formula 1 car and that just felt wrong to me. I knew it was wrong.”

Newey’s desire for new challenges played a significant role in his decision to leave Red Bull.

“I find that there comes a point where I feel as if I need new challenges,” he added. “The team’s reached a good level of maturity, it’s a very mature engineering organisation as well as the rest of the team, so in a way I’ve kind of done my bit.

“I started to feel as if we were going a little bit stale. I think the guys also felt as if perhaps they needed to show that they could do it on their own, so I thought, ‘Okay, let’s give them the chance and give myself a new challenge.'”

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