Red Bull won four world championships with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2013; now Max Verstappen is dominating F1 and a key member during both periods of success has been Adrian Newey; watch the Canadian GP from June 16-18 with all sessions live on Sky Sports F1
Adrian Newey says Red Bull have a minimal email culture and is aware about the dangers of complacency.
Newey, who is regarded as one of F1’s greatest engineers, has played an instrumental role in Red Bull’s success during the last two years.
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“Theoretically I’m in charge of everybody but I never look at it that way. We try to run a very flat structure, where we encourage everyone to communicate and minimise the email culture, encourage people to talk – if it’s an aero designer, talk to the guy designing the mechanical solution for that aerodynamic shape,” he told Sky Italy.
“I think it’s about trying to have a very involving place to work. Then we have some very good senior engineers too.”
Newey is Red Bull’s chief technical officer, but there are several other key members of the team that have been pivotal in the last two years.
Pierre Wache has been the team’s technical officer since 2018, Craig Skinner and Enrico Balbo head up the aerodynamics side, while Ben Waterhouse is Red Bull’s head of performance engineering.
Red Bull lead this year’s constructors’ championship by 135 points from Mercedes, while Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez head the drivers’ standings.
“We have to assume we are going to get pushed, so we have to keep developing. In F1, as soon as you become slightly complacent, you can be overtaken quite quickly,” said Newey.
“The regulations for next year are quite stable. Whatever we do in research for this year, will still be relevant for next year.”
Sky F1’s Damon Hill and Rachel Brookes discuss Mercedes’ chances of challenging the Red Bulls for race wins this season
Newey takes copying as ‘serious compliment’
The success of this season’s RB19 has led to other teams moving towards Red Bull’s design philosophy, with Mercedes choosing to divert from their no sidepod concept to much bigger sidepods, like Red Bull.
Perez joked it was “nice to see three Red Bull cars on the podium” after Fernando Alonso finished third in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix for Aston Martin.
“It’s a serious compliment when people copy. It’s part of F1 of course. We all look at each other. In truth, we have copied things from other people as well,” stated Newey.
“Some of that copying is visual, some of it is occasionally from people moving around – we have seen that this year.
“It’s part of F1, it’s an intense competition. You can’t have pride. You have got to always evaluate what others are doing. You might end up directly copying it or it might give you ideas of ‘why have they done that’ and does that make you do something differently.”
Newey regularly looks at other cars on the grid ahead of a Grand Prix and explained what he learns from this: “More often than not it’s, ‘this looks interesting. Let’s have a look at what our car does in this area in detail and does what they have done spark any ideas of how we might develop our own car.’ Not necessarily by simply copying but why have they done that and does that bring any ideas.”
Verstappen had no trouble in securing his fifth win of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix, with the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell completing the podium places. READ MORE
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