Adrian Newey Publicly Admits He’s “Not Happy” With the RB20; Plans a Change

Adrian Newey’s technical genius is unrivaled. Max Verstappen cruised to dominating victories in 2023 with the RB19 and looks threatening enough to repeat that in 2024 with the RB20. Both of these mighty cars are the creations of Newey, who has led Red Bull to multiple three consecutive drivers’ championships in F1’s ground-effect era. Yet, the British engineer isn’t satisfied with the RB20.

Once the 2022 regulations kicked in, Red Bull soared to F1’s pinnacle. The technical team led by CTO Adrian Newey left no stone unturned in ensuring their dominance stayed put. In 2023, Verstappen broke multiple records, including, but not limited to, most consecutive victories (10), most wins in a season (19), most laps led in a season (1003), and most podium finishes (21).

In 2024, however, McLaren and Ferrari are threatening to end their near-perfect run. Maybe that’s why Newey has expressed how a feature on the RB20 will be “re-altered” for 2025. In a recent Sky Sports interview, Natalie Pinkham questioned Newey if Red Bull could find more pace with the current regulations.

“Yeah, I mean, there’s always room for improvement,” Newey replied. “This car is the third evolution of the ’22 car under this rule set. We’ve got one more year next year before the huge change of ’26. So we’re always searching for little bits and pieces.”

The Briton then pointed out one of the RB20’s weaknesses. “The fundamental architecture of the car has remained the same, but I mean, for instance, there’s one feature on the car that I’m not terribly happy with this year,” he emphasized. “And that’s something which will either change later in the year or probably more likely, will be re-altered for next year.”

Though Newey is somewhat dissatisfied with the RB20, he no longer has a say in its future developments. His Red Bull exit has led his right-hand man, Pierre Wache, to be the technical team’s new lead. All Newey can do is continue working on the RB17 hypercar and decide where he wants to spend his future—F1 or retirement.

Helmut Marko drops a big hint at Adrian Newey’s next F1 team

Adrian Newey has three offers on his table. One from Ferrari, another from Aston Martin, and the newest one from Williams. On the Williams front, there have been no updates other than TP James Vowles’ conversation with him. But between the other two teams, Newey was more interested in joining Ferrari than accepting Lawrence Stroll’s lucrative offer.

However, those reports could be untrue, as Helmut Marko has hinted at the opposite. “What color do I see Newey in the future?” Marko was questioned, as quoted by total-motorsport.com. “I think the red clashes a bit with the dark blue. But I think anything is possible with a great color like green,” he slyly answered, referring to Aston Martin being Newey’s next destination.

Adrian Newey is in the technical personnel market and Carlos Sainz currently is in the drivers market. Both of them are spoiled for choice. By the end of May, we could have some concrete contract announcements. What are your thoughts on these developments? Let us know in the comments below.