Newey doesn't rule out Red Bull departure: 'Be like leaving your family'

Adrian Newey has been involved in designing Red Bull Racing's car for a long time. Many call him the critical factor in the Austrian team's success. This coming December 26, he will turn 65. By now you would start thinking about retirement. Yet the Brit is not thinking about that just yet.

Newey is responsible for all of Red Bull's team's success cars. As such, his talent does not go unnoticed. In David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan's Formula for Success podcast, he says that Ferrari have approached him several times. "Ferrari is this magic brand that I suppose, in all honesty, probably everybody in motor racing is always fascinated by and tempted to join if there's the opportunity. I've been approached and come close three times now, one of those in Indy cars way back. It's an amazing brand, it has had all this mystique about it, it's effectively the Italian national team, with all the pros and cons that come with that. And the cons are that if you don't do a great job, you're absolutely berated and torn apart. Of course, if you do do a good job, then you're a national hero. So that brings all its own pressures."

'It feels like leaving your family'

The Brit does not rule out a departure to Ferrari's team, but he does indicate that leaving Red Bull would feel like leaving your family, having been involved with the Austrian team for so long. "But I have to try to take the passion and that side out and approach it from an engineering side. The teams I've worked for, I've hugely enjoyed. Red Bull, which is largely in part to your advice as well David. That's a team I've been at, more or less from the start, it's a team that I've been very centrally involved in developing the engineering side. So it's a team I kind of feel comfortable with. We all know how we work. I'm not saying I'll never ever change. Never say that. But it would be like walking out on your family, because that's what it's become."