F1 News: Adrian Newey Wants To Work With Lewis Hamilton - "But It Never Happened"
Red Bull's Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey reveals a few regrets he has had throughout his career, including being unable to work with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and two-time champion Fernando Alonso.
Newey joined Red Bull in 2006 and since then, he has rejected offers from Ferrari on several different occasions. But despite having a successful career with the Milton Keynes outfit, Newey regrets not working with Scuderia Ferrari on the emotional front.
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Opening up on the Beyond The Grid podcast, Newey revealed:
“[Ferrari approached] in my IndyCar days, which probably doesn’t count, then ’93 and famously in 2014. The ’93 one was very tempting.
"I went down, Jean Todt [team boss] had just started. I remember him talking about should he hire Michael [Schumacher] or not. Do you think that was a good idea?”
However, Newey, who had gotten married at that time, declined the offer since his first marriage broke because his wife couldn't get used to the climate in the United States. He didn't want to risk breaking his second marriage by moving to Italy and thus, declined Ferrari's offer.
When asked by Tom Clarkson if he would've agreed to the idea of establishing a remote setup in a place like Guildford which Ferrari did on the persuasion of designer John Barnard, Newey replied:
“I never asked the question and I don’t believe it. If you’re going to do it, Ferrari is an Italian team.
"The idea of having a research and design centre which is in a completely different place to the race team - I know we have a sister team [AlphaTauri], split between Faenza, Italy and Bicester, UK] that does that - but I don’t believe in the concept.”
In another instance when Ferrari approached him in 2014, a period which saw the rise of the 1.6-liter turbo hybrid machines, Newey was happy working at Red Bull but engine supplier Renault's attitude made him reconsider his options out of frustration. He added:
“My discussions in 2014 with Ferrari were purely out of frustration.
"I really didn’t want to leave but we were in this position where Renault hadn’t produced a competitive turbo hybrid engine.
"That happens in the first year, OK, new rules. We all make mistakes.
"But we went to see Carlos Ghosn [former Renault CEO], Christian [Horner], Helmut [Marko] and myself to try to put pressure on him to up the budget.
"Ghosn’s reply was ‘Well, I have no interest in Formula 1. I’m only in it because my marketing people say I should be.‘ That was such a depressing place to be.”
Newey seriously considered a move to Ferrari back then but didn't do it eventually. But maybe, he still held on to the desire that converted into an emotional regret because when he was asked if he had regrets about turning town Ferrari's advances, he revealed:
“Emotionally, I guess, to a point. Yes.
"But just as, for instance, working with Fernando and Lewis would have been fabulous. But it never happened. It’s just circumstance sometimes, that’s the way it is.”
