‘NO POINT SIGNING ADRIAN NEWEY’ – MARTIN BRUNDLE’S WARNING AS FOUR-TEAM SHORTLIST REVEALED

Former F1 driver Martin Brundle narrowed the grid down to four teams that have the resources needed to make a move for Adrian Newey.

Newey will be a free agent in the first quarter of 2025 after his shock Red Bull departure was confirmed earlier this month, with interest in his services expected to be high considering Red Bull’s dominance of the F1 ground effect era.

Mercedes, Aston Martin, McLaren Ferrari in the hunt for Adrian Newey?

However, Brundle warned that Newey is not just a plug-and-play option for success at any team, as only one with the resources to take advantage of his innovations will benefit, narrowing that group down to Mercedes, Aston Martin, McLaren and Ferrari.

“You’ve got to have a lot of money and a lot of resource or there’s no point having Adrian Newey,” said Brundle during an appearance on the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“If you sit him in an office, but you don’t have the goods around him and the funds to use his ideas, then there’s no point.

“All the teams are like, ‘No, no, we’re really happy as we are thank you very much’ – A) because they might not get him and B) because they don’t want to upset the team they’ve already got in place.

“But clearly Mercedes, Aston Martin, McLaren, Ferrari will be looking and trying to get [Newey] somehow.

“Because it’s a double-edged sword. If you can get Adrian’s experience and skills, then you’ve got him and somebody else doesn’t have him. So they’ll all be trying like crazy. If they’re not, they should be.”

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Of course, this all depends on whether Newey wants another F1 project in the first place, as while he has not closed the door on a return to the series, he currently has “no plans” for one.

Brundle though is confident that Newey will pop up somewhere else on the grid, as the new 2026 regulations “have got Adrian written all over them.”

“I think he will,” Brundle replied when asked if he believes Newey will carry on. “I think he’s a competitive animal.

“He’s a friend of mine and Adrian’s a man of great principle, but I think he’ll get a little bit bored, when you think Rory Byrne still has a contract with Ferrari at 80 years old, based in Thailand or somewhere.

“The 2026 regulations have got Adrian written all over them in terms of acing the complex active aerodynamics. But that’s not to downplay all the other people, Pierre Wache [Red Bull technical director] and there’s a lot of very clever people around.

“The first grand prix I did, there were 12 people on the call sheet, including Ken and Norah Tyrrell and the two drivers.

“So that meant there were eight people running two Formula 1 cars. And I think Mercedes just announced their results that they have just under 1,300 people in the team.

“There’s a lot of people around and it’s wrong to say one person can make the difference, but I’ll guarantee that along the way Adrian just tipped a couple of things in and came up with some ideas that made the difference. Just the experience and the nous and the feel for what you need.

“I would be surprised if, down the road, he doesn’t have some kind of affiliation with a Formula 1 team. I’d be amazed, in fact.”

With his involvement in the Red Bull Formula 1 team over, Newey’s focus will be on the RB17 hypercar until his official exit.

2024-05-15T11:39:31Z dg43tfdfdgfd