Christian Horner has revealed how Red Bull aerodynamics chief Adrian Newey came within ‘half an hour’ of leaving for Ferrari back in 2014 before the Milton Keynes-based team made a last-ditch effort to keep him that involved promising him a road car project.
Newey has been working with Red Bull since 2006, utilising his expertise to help Sebastian Vettel to four consecutive Drivers’ Championship titles at the start of the 2010s before producing the RB19, which will go down in history as the most dominant F1 car ever produced.
The 64-year-old is widely regarded as one of the greatest technical chiefs in the sport’s decorated history and has been critical to Red Bull’s success in the modern era. However, after failing to convert their 2013 dominance into a strong 2014 challenger, Newey nearly joined Vettel in making the move to Maranello.
Discussing the near-miss on the Eff Won with DRS podcast, Horner explained: “Our engine supplier completely missed the target. At that point, Sebastian Vettel leaves because of the engine. Adrian came very close to leaving. He was about half an hour [from doing so].
Click here to join our WhatsApp community to be the first to receive breaking and exclusive F1 news.
Don’t miss… Martin Brundle confident Hamilton won’t ignore him forever despite crash fears[LATEST]
“Ferrari came hard for him and they promised him the world – ‘You can have a Hollywood lifestyle, fly into the factory from Monaco every day, not pay any tax, you can design a road car’. I managed to persuade him to stay by saying: ‘We will do a road car. If you want to do a road car then we will do a road car!’”
The road car in question ended up being the Aston Martin Valkyrie, which first exited production in 2021 and cost in the region of £2.8million ($3.5m) to purchase. The British manufacturer, who worked with Red Bull on the design, will be entering the World Endurance Championship with the car in 2025.
More F1…
Hamilton and Leclerc snubbed as Red Bull’s Lando Norris admiration backed up[INSIGHT]
Every driver out of contract next season as 15 F1 stars become available[CONTRACTS]
Inside Mercedes’ junior team with ‘next Max Verstappen’ and Williams F1 hopeful[INSIDE]
- Support fearless journalism
- Read The Daily Express online, advert free
- Get super-fast page loading
Newey has given his own account of the Ferrari links from 2014, telling Sky Sports F1: “I didn’t want to walk out on that but equally I didn’t want to be in a position where we were operating with one hand tied behind our back in the engine department.
“It was a very difficult decision. Ferrari came up with an incredible offer, very attractive, and it caused me a lot of sleepless nights deciding what to do and who to go for. In the end, it would have felt wrong to walk out on Red Bull.”
Source: Read Full Article
