Adrian Newey says he 'couldn't stay at Red Bull' as reasons given for 'crazy' exit
Adrian Newey says he 'couldn't stay at Red Bull' as reasons given for 'crazy' exit
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Adrian Newey has revealed he felt he had to leave Red Bull to stay "true to myself". The 66-year-old Formula 1 car design legend rocked the sport last year by telling colleagues that he planned to walk away from the team he had played a significant role at since joining in 2006. And it sparked a bidding war for his services.
Though the likes of Ferrari and Williams were keen, Newey rejected both to accept a huge mega-money offer that also sees him become a profit participant at Aston Martin. He begins his new role in March and, ahead of that, he has once again reflected on his Red Bull departure.
Newey admitted even just this team last year it would have been "crazy" to think that he would have moved on. And while he declined to share specific motivations for his decision to quit Red Bull, he said he had come to the conclusion that he simply had to move on.
"I think if you'd said to me 12 months ago, would I be leaving Red Bull and then now, ultimately starting again, I'd have said, 'No, you're crazy'," he told Germany's Auto Motor und Sport. "But for various reasons, I felt I wouldn't be true to myself if I stayed at Red Bull. So the first difficult decision was exactly that, do I stay or not at Red Bull?.
"So obviously, I came to the conclusion that in being honest to myself, I couldn't. And then, having made that decision, it was then what to do next? And with my wife, Mandy, we discussed various things. One was, obviously, I'm in the lucky position that I don't need to work financially.
