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Newey's 'lack of experience' theory for Red Bull's decline

Adrian Newey suspects that inexperience among Red Bull's technical leadership following his departure was a factor in the team's F1 decline last year

By Jon Noble

Jan 30, 2025 04:53 PM

Adrian Newey suspects that inexperience among Red Bull's technical leadership following his departure was a factor in the team's Formula 1 decline last year.

The F1 design genius announced in April he was leaving the squad and, although he remained present at races after that, he was removed from direct involvement in technical matters.

His exit, eventually followed by news that he would join Aston Martin in 2025, coincided with Red Bull's previous dominance of F1 being wiped away - as McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes all made steps forward to win races.

It took Red Bull until the latter stages of the year to get on top of the handling and balance problems of the RB20, with a victory for Max Verstappen in Brazil helping him on his way to capturing the drivers' championship.

While the development progress of its rivals was an element in a change of the competitive picture, what was less obvious was why Red Bull's own form fell away so much and both Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez struggled.

Speaking in a wide-ranging video interview with Auto Motor und Sport, Newey was asked for his best guess as to why Red Bull had not been able to maintain its strong start to the 2024 season.

His response was that he believed that warning signs about Red Bull's car getting more difficult to drive were not being heeded, and that it took the squad a bit too long to react in the right way without him.

"From what I could see, the car was already, the '24 car, and through the very last stages of '23 as well, I would say, starting to become more difficult to drive," said Newey.

"And of course that suited Max: [he] could handle that, if you like. It didn't suit him, but he could handle it. Checo [Perez] couldn't. So we also started, through '23, to see more of a difference in performance between the team-mates, Max and Checo.

"That [characteristic] carried into the first part of '24 but the car was still quick enough to be able to cope with it.

"It was something I was starting to become concerned about, but not many other people in the organisation seemed to be very concerned about.

"And from what I can see from the outside, but I don't know, the guys at Red Bull, and this is no criticism, but I think they just, perhaps, through lack of experience, kept going in that same direction.

"And the problem became more and more acute, to the point that even Max found it difficult to drive."

Newey's perception of the first hints of trouble appearing at the end of 2023 are in line with what Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache pointed to over the winter.

Speaking to The Race, Wache said that the team, in its quest to make the RB20 a good step forward, had not paid big enough attention to some behaviours that had emerged with its predecessor.

"We missed some characteristics of the car," he said. "I wouldn't say we didn't spot it, but it was not highlighting a massive loss of performance previously.

"During the season we saw this type of characteristic which was seen, but not highlighted, as a big issue. But when we reduced the downforce for Monza it really highlighted the problem massively."

The demands of Monza, where cars run in low-downforce spec and off the ground because of kerbs, exposed a specific weakness of the RB20 in how it operated at a high ride height.

Verstappen is understood to have spotted on the data how the shift in aero balance towards the rear on corner entry in this configuration was much worse than it had been with its 2023 car - so was probably a cause of the mid-corner understeer problems that the squad had been suffering from.

It proved to be the eureka moment in helping Red Bull get a better understanding of what was wrong with its car, and helped it put in place a revised upgrade package that resulted in the gains that came from the United States GP in October.

Wache added: "The concept was more or less a philosophy. More and more when you extract performance you start to create some other characteristics. These are highlighted at very low downforce, high ride heights, as suddenly the driver cannot drive the car."

In his interview, Newey explained how the current generation of cars were especially difficult to develop and ensure that they perform consistently at different ride heights without triggering balance complications.

"A ground effect car which doesn't have sealed skirts like the old sliding skirt cars, is always going to be very susceptible to aerodynamic instabilities," he said.

"You now start to generate these very low pressures under the floor, but you have all this leakage coming in from the side, and that creates, potentially, some quite strong losses and problems as you get closer and closer to the ground.

"But equally they're a good way of creating downforce. So you're always trying to trade downforce versus consistency through [the right height range]. It's a difficult problem."

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Originally posted by 220-9er:
Newey will be mostly working on the 2026 car but I wonder if his influence will help make this season a little better for Aston too?

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Netflix set to enter race for F1 broadcast rights in the United States
By Mark Mann-Bryans

Feb 07, 2025 09:10 AM3 min. readView original
Netflix is emerging as the potential new home for Formula 1 in the US as a bidding process for the live broadcast rights from the 2026 season onwards is due to begin.

The streaming service already plays a key role in growing the championship, with its seventh series of the Drive to Survive documentary series airing in the near future.

But Motorsport.com understands Netflix is now strongly considering a bid to secure live streaming rights to F1, with current holder ESPN’s exclusivity period to discuss fresh terms now expired.

As reported by Autosport Business in October, there was early mummering within ESPN that a new deal would not be struck with Liberty Media, with the 2026 deal expected to eclipse the $90million a year currently being paid.

Drive to Survive became a hit for both Netflix and F1 when the first season dropped in 2019 and only grew its audience during the lockdowns that followed the outbreak of COVID-19.

It is understood that, as things stand, the latest series - likely to drop in the coming weeks - is currently the last for which Netflix has a contract to produce, while a new docuseries based around the all-female F1 Academy will land on the service later this year.



In November, Netflix hired Kate Jackson to run their live sports output having previously led ESPN’s coverage of F1 in her role as vice president of production.

Since then, it has made moves to have live sports content available to subscribers with the Mike Tyson v Jake Paul boxing bout breaking records in November for the most-streamed sports event of all time.

That was followed up with two NFL fixtures streamed on Christmas Day before a $5billion 10-year deal to globally stream WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) programming began in January.

Added to winning the US broadcasting rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup, it is clear that a live sport strategy has become a key ambition for Netflix.

That could now extend to Formula 1, which has become more popular than ever in the American market, especially among the younger, female demographic.

A previous home of F1 in America, ESPN returned with a new broadcasting deal for the 2018 season – paying no traditional fee for the rights, with Liberty keen to get F1 into as many living rooms across the country as possible.



The next deal then saw ESPN pay $5million a year between 2019-2022 before a new agreement was signed in 2022 running through 2025, with at least 16 races airing on ABC and ESPN.

Although, following the groundswell of interest from American audiences, the Disney-owned broadcaster had to pay much more for the privilege – a reported $90m annually.

ESPN had a record-setting 2022 with the most-viewed F1 championship ever broadcast on US television and from 2023 onwards screened all 23 races – 18 across ABC or ESPN and the remaining five on ESPN2.

Last year, the triple-header across the Americas was given the best-in-class treatment by ESPN, with GameDay on the ground alongside the network’s regular team in Austin, Mexico City and Sao Paulo.

Elsewhere, ESPN utilises the Sky Sports F1 coverage, but it is believed a continuation of such agreement is unlikely to continue should Netflix ultimately win the rights.

Any new deal for the US rights will not have an immediate impact in the United Kingdom, where Sky has an agreement in place until 2029.

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Originally posted by Georgeair:
I think I'm a no on Netflix as long as there are other options. However it would give more exposure in the States, which is good overall for the sport.

/signed
a person whose requirement for cable/package used to be Speedvision as a channel option

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Originally posted by hooch:
I just get the feeling that Chuck and Lewie are going to play bumper cars a few times this year to prove who's the Alpha male on the team.

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Originally posted by hooch:
I just get the feeling that Chuck and Lewie are going to play bumper cars a few times this year to prove who's the Alpha male on the team.

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Originally posted by P250UA5:
Plus, I've watched every season from 1970 & am almost done with 2004. Most people have music playing while they work, I have old F1 races.

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Originally posted by nhtagmember:
not looking forward to F1 this year

I really do not like little Lewlew Hamilton

at all

watching him in a Ferrari seat is going to be painful

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Originally posted by .38supersig:

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Originally posted by nhtagmember:
not looking forward to F1 this year

I really do not like little Lewlew Hamilton

at all

watching him in a Ferrari seat is going to be painful

Yeah, Hopefully Lewlewapalooza will be over by the time the race starts.

It's a big story, I get that, but it is not the only story.

There are 19 (soon to be 21) other teams drivers out there somewhere...