Red Bull design legend Adrian Newey says he does have some regrets at never working at Ferrari or with F1 greats like Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
Newey has been at Red Bull since 2006 and has played a key role in each of the team’s six constructors’ championships, the most recent of which it secured at the Japanese Grand Prix last week.
Previously, Newey designed championship-winning cars with with Williams and McLaren in the 1990s, although he never worked for Ferrari despite several opportunities.
Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Newey was asked if he regrets not having Ferrari on his résumé.
“Emotionally, I guess, to a point, yes,” Newey replied.
“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.”
Newey had various opportunities to join Ferrari, including at the beginning of what would turn into the dominant Michael Schumacher era of the early 2000s, spearheaded by team boss Jean Todt.
Newey was last approached by Ferrari in 2014, when the Italian team and Red Bull’s engine partner Renault both found themselves significantly off Mercedes’ dominant V6 package.
“Once 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 had just started. I remember him talking about should he hire Michael or not, [asking] ‘do you think that was a good idea?'”
Newey always had reservations about moving to Italy.
“The main reason I didn’t is my first marriage failed, for various reasons, but probably predominantly because I went off to IndyCar, I was living in the States during the season. My relatively newly-wed life came out with me to start with, really didn’t like living in America and went back. That put a strain on our marriage we never really recovered from, to be honest.
“In ’93, I was one year into my second marriage and didn’t want to make that same mistake again.”
Newey added that his 2014 talks with Ferrari were “purely out of frustration” with Renault’s lack of commitment to F1.
Ferrari is also understood to have made advances to Newey and Red Bull boss Christian Horner midway through 2022, although neither showed any serious desire to leave Red Bull at the time.