Newey ‘excited’ by 2017 regulations - Horner

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says designer Adrian Newey is “excited” by the 2017 regulations.

Having admitted he was not happy with the current regulations, believing they place too much emphasis on power unit performance than car design, Newey has been working with Aston Martin to develop its AM-RB 001 hypercar. The new car was unveiled on Tuesday and speaking at Aston Martin’s headquarters Horner says Newey is motivated by next year’s F1 regulations which place a greater focus on aerodynamics and mechanical grip from wider tyres.

“I think he’s excited by the regulation change for 2017 so he’s splitting his time very much between the two projects,” Horner said. “Once the Aston Martin project is into a detailed design phase he tends to step back at that point. He’s very much about the concept, about the aerodynamics, about the layout of the car and he’s very heavily involved obviously in the 2017 car as well.”

And Horner says Newey will take more of an active role in next year’s car as the Aston Martin project progresses but also has confidence in Red Bull’s ability to work without his input.

“Adrian over the last couple of years has been spending probably about 50% of his time focused on Formula One. We’ve geared ourselves around utilising his time accordingly.

“I think his time during any week or month varies. It depends what the priorities are. He has a tremendously high workrate but we have got some enormously capable people on the Formula One team that have had that little bit of breathing space as well. They have used that to great effect with for example the current car.”

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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.