Newey a deserter? Horner reportedly did not fully understand his frustration with Renault

The original-language edition of Christian Horner’s autobiography has been on the shelves for a week, and reactions are beginning to emerge from the figures he writes about. Some of his statements, however, are highly controversial. That includes his comments about Adrian Newey, whom Horner claims he could no longer trust from 2014 onwards. What does the design genius make of that?

In his book Drive, Horner also complained about Newey, who was his right-hand man on the technical side for 20 years. He claims he trusted him until 2014, but no longer, because “at the first sign of adversity” he wanted to jump ship from Red Bull. “I could no longer rely on him,” he recalled of Newey’s talks with Ferrari.

Reporters in Austin wanted to hear Newey’s own response. At the press conference, he explained whether he had really wanted to “abandon ship”.

“You’re quite right in saying that, no, I haven’t read any of it yet,” Adrian Newey said in response to the book, before explaining why Christian Horner might have felt he wanted to leave. “I think 2014, as a chassis designer, if the PU manufacturer has a bad year, that happens and you accept it.”

With Renault, however, it was a different story. “If the PU manufacturer has a bad year and doesn’t appear to have any intention of trying to address the problem, that’s altogether a different matter and that’s quite bleak at that point. And that’s the situation that unfortunately we faced in 2014.”

Renault’s half-hearted approach cost Red Bull several seasons. Newey’s team could have built the best chassis in motorsport history, but with Mercedes’ power units so dominant, they would still have been collecting third places.

“And as it turned out, that situation didn’t really change with that supplier until we changed to Honda in 2019,” Newey recalled. “So, you can imagine my pain and frustration at that. I don’t think Christian fully understood that, perhaps. But I was in conversation.”

Newey did not comment on the rest of Horner’s book, although he must have seen various extracts published by Formula 1 websites in recent weeks. In any case, Newey offered reassurance that he and Horner “remain friends”. “As many of you know, I am godfather to his daughter Olivia.”

There is one point in Horner’s book that Newey does agree with: his experience at Aston Martin is similar to the early days at Red Bull, after Dietrich Mateschitz bought Jaguar. “I think there are actually a lot of parallels between when I started at Red Bull and when I’ve started at Aston Martin.”

“Both teams that through their history had had quite a lot of turmoil with changes of owners, changes of senior managers, etc. It’s then really trying to, as we’ve spoken before, get everybody working together, try to break down silos, improve the culture. And that’s been exactly the same again,” he concluded.