He has a full year to make his decision and half of the grid wants him. Take a vacation and please pick Williams.
He still has offers on the table. I wonder how far he has gotten with them. It still feels that some of this vagueness about his move is smoke and mirrors. I have a hard time believing he has no idea where he is going next.
Surely it’s a strange decision to negotiate no gardening leave with RB if he was just going to retire anyway?
Given Lewis’, Charles’, and Fred’s reactions when asked about Newey, too, seems to indicate there’s at least something there?
Maybe Newey isn’t going to Ferrari after all (though it does seem odd, like I say)? Or maybe he doesn’t want to confirm it while he’s still working on RB’s hypercar project because making a RB hypercar while being confirmed for Ferrari is awkward for both Ferrari and for RB?
Surely it’s a strange decision to negotiate no gardening leave with RB if he was just going to retire anyway?
Maybe it was a just in case measure. So that he can say yes if the right opportunity arrives. Either way he is in a weird spot when it comes to designing a 2026 car. By the time he leaves Red Bull in 2025, the teams will have already laid down the fundamental design of their 2026 car, so he wouldn’t be able to design it from the ground up. And in the era of the cost cap, the cars of the following years will likely be evolutions of the 2026 car rather than Newey’s own design. We saw how long it took Mercedes to get away from their zero sidepod design and it’s probably still hurting them.
Eddie Jordan made retirement sound like the most likely case for Newey on the formula for success podcast. After watching Eddie and David discuss it and then the podcast the next day with Adrian, I think he’s going to take some time off. I could be totally wrong but we shall see.
