Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says Adrian Newey is now splitting his time “50:50” between working on F1 and on other projects.
It was announced in 2014 that Newey would be moving in to a different role at Red Bull, signing a new contract that allowed him to focus on other Red Bull projects alongside F1. With the RB11 set to be the team’s first car since that change, Horner says Newey’s influence can still be seen in the 2015 design despite the reduced involvement.
“Adrian’s had a bit less input but he’s still been very much the architect of this car,” Horner said. “He’ll be at the tests. He’s splitting his time effectively now around 50:50, but 50% of Adrian’s time is quite significant. So he’s certainly been paying a lot of attention to what’s been going on, on the engine as well.”
Referencing the power unit, Horner believes a key part of Red Bull’s partnership with Renault will be the timing of any updates this season.
“This year strategically you can upgrade during the year on your different power units. For sure Renault are taking an aggressive development approach to this year and strategically we just need to decide when you use those tokens in the four engines that you have available to you.”
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
