Statements by Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner on Adrian Newey overnight will go some way to allaying concerns about whether the team can produce a car for Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo to win the F1 world title.
It had been known for months that Newey was scaling back his involvement in F1 because of his exasperation with the sport’s technical regulations.
He is to work with Red Bull Advanced Technologies, in particular on an America’s Cup sailing entry by British Olympic sailor Ben Ainslie.
However, Horner has clarified that Newey has been integral to the design of next year’s RB11 car and that he will attend some of the pre-season tests and some races as RBR attempts to regain its ascendancy after the initial dominance of the new hybrid era by Mercedes.
“Adrian is taking a little bit of a step back, but he’s still very much involved,” Horner said.
“He’s overseen the design of the new car.
“He is going to be splitting his time between F1 and Red Bull Advanced Technologies.
“We recently announced a project with Ben Ainslie Racing … primarily focused on simulation and mathematical modelling.
“It’s great to still have Adrian as part of the [F1] team and still advising and mentoring … a strong senior technical team.
“F1 will still burn deeply inside of him.
“Despite the fact it will be a diminished involvement from Adrian, it’s still a very positive one.”
However, as Patrick Head’s latter days at the Williams team showed, you don’t make progress in the ultra-competitive world of F1 when you’re key technical person is working less than 100 per cent on the cars.
Unlike Head though, Newey may yet rediscover his total commitment.