Will Red Bull remain competitive over the long term without Adrian Newey?

Former McLaren F1 driver Mark Blundell has urged Christian Horner to orchestrate a rebuild of the Red Bull team in light of Adrian Newey’s move to Aston Martin. 

Red Bull produced the most dominant season in F1 history last year, winning 21 of a possible 22 races as Max Verstappen eased to a third consecutive World Championship.

Christian Horner to identify ‘the next Adrian Newey’ in Red Bull rebuild?

The Milton Keynes-based team entered the F1 2024 campaign as overwhelming favourites, but have struggled increasingly as the season has developed.

Red Bull lost the lead of the Constructors’ Championship for the first time since May 2022 last month, with McLaren holding a 41-point lead with six races remaining.

Verstappen, meanwhile, has seen his advantage over Lando Norris reduced to 52 points, with the 27-year-old without a win since the Spanish Grand Prix in June 23 – an eight-race streak his longest barren run since the 2020 season.

Go deeper: Christian Horner and Red Bull Racing

Red Bull have been rocked by a number of high-profile departures this year with Newey, the most decorated individual in the sport’s history, announcing last month that he will join Aston Martin in F1 2025.

Newey’s exit, announced in May, has been followed by the departures of long-serving sporting director Jonathan Wheatley and strategy chief Will Courtenay, who will take up key positions at Audi F1 and McLaren respectively.

Blundell made 61 F1 starts for the likes of Brabham, Ligier, Tyrrell and McLaren in the early 1990s, registering a total of three podium finishes.

And the former UK F1 pundit has urged Horner, the longest-serving active team principal having been appointed in 2005, to oversee a complete rebuild of Red Bull, including identifying “the next Adrian Newey.”

Blundell pointed to McLaren’s resurgence, having been reduced to backmarker status less than a decade ago during their disastrous partnership with Red Bull’s current engine suppliers Honda, as evidence of a top team rising again.

He told the Express: “I think it’s time for Christian Horner to use all of his ability and his depth of knowledge now to put together a grand prix-winning team again and so much of that is personnel-led.

“So it’s got to be: who is the next Adrian Newey?

“Who’s going to replace Newey in those years to come to design grand prix-winning cars and be a consistent guy, or girl, to put that on pen to paper?

“I think it’s always difficult when the teams get on the downward cycle, but a lot of it is cyclical and we’ve seen that.

“And it’s no different to watching McLaren now coming up on the upward trajectory. That’s something that we haven’t seen for many seasons and many years, but it takes time to get everything put in place.

“I don’t think it’d be an overnight change with Red Bull to get back to the heady days that they’ve expected and believe that should be there all the time, but it’s achievable.”

Red Bull technical director Pierre Waché has been described as Newey’s in-house successor, with the Frenchman believed to have led the development of the current RB20 car.

In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com at July’s Belgian Grand Prix, Waché described Newey’s departure as “a shame” but outlined his optimism that Red Bull are well placed to succeed without the F1 design guru.

He said: “It’s a challenge in the compa

“As an engineering team, what you see from outside is one aspect but, on our side, we already know [when] people leave the team, we have already organised ourselves with our team.

“We would prefer him with us, but that is not how it is.

“We don’t think in this way, we try to see what you can do for yourself and how you can improve.

“If we see some weaknesses, we try to improve and this is how we work – we concentrate on what we can do better.”

Asked if a new chapter is beginning at Red Bull, Waché stressed the importance of promoting within to keep a supply of fresh talent as established figures move on.

He said: “For sure, but it’s not [new].

“Before, we had Peter Prodromou, who left after 2014. Mark Ellis [left after 2013].

“It’s the nature of the team, and the leaders who left – they were a leader in their area. But it’s a natural aspect of each organisation.

“For sure, [Adrian] was a big figure of the system. But at one point, we give a chance to the younger, bright people to embrace this challenge, like I have now.

“Some people like Enrico [Balbo, head of aero], Ben Waterhouse [head of performance engineering], Craig [Skinner, chief designer], Paul [Monaghan, chief engineer], it is good for the people and for the team.

“It’s a massive benefit because you see the hard work is paying off.

“The team is a working organisation – not by individual, but a group and how we work together. If you have each individual working in isolation, nothing works.

“If you want to put a rocket on the moon, one guy cannot do it – you need people doing stuff and it’s the same for the car.”