Red Bull’s CGO (Chief Greymatter Officer) Adrian Newey, known for his incredible prowess at designing title-winning cars has announced that he may be looking at stepping down as the regulations in F1 have become too restrictive. This isn’t the first time Mr. Newey has hinted at leaving the sport for other projects like boat design etc. Adrian told the MB’s at Autosport (exclusively of course):
“I would definitely like to step back in the not-too-distance future. The rules are becoming more and more restrictive.”
You can read the full, terrific article as could only by penned by Jonathan Noble and Edd Straw here.
Now, I am not sure what to make of this other than Adrian seems to have been somewhat disenchanted with F1 since he almost left McLaren for Jaguar, then ran by friend Bobby Rahal. Adrian seems to be less thrilled with motorsport over the last 8 years or so and who can blame him. My honest opinion is that Adrian is one of the “engineers” Max and Bernie keep marginalizing as Play Station kids. In my mind, you lose a guy like Adrian from the sport, you lose a piece of the sports panache. Adrian works in finite detail and Max’s regulation changes and restrictions have the precise nature of a poleax to cattle. you can see the lack of parity between pure engineering and bombastic politicking and quasi-random regulation changing.
