Mercedes attempt to poach Red Bull’s Adrian Newey as Toto Wolff assistant calls

Mercedes clearly recognise the role Adrian Newey has had on Red Bull’s current dominance in F1 as they reportedly tried to poach the Chief Technology Officer from their rivals recently. Newey is widely regarded as one of F1’s greatest car designers having helped Red Bull once again set the benchmark this year.

He’s helped design multiple championship-winning cars dating back to 1992 when he worked at Williams. It’s at Red Bull where Newey has spent the majority of his career though, starting with the team back in 2006.

Having originally struggled to build a car capable of challenging Mercedes through their era of dominance, Newey finally found the winning formula again last year after the change in regulations. Every other team has since been playing catch up with Red Bull with the team only growing in strength this year.

And it seems as though Mercedes wanted to test the waters on whether Newey fancied a new challenge in recent weeks. According to F1 Insider, Newey received a phone call from ‘one of Toto Wolff’s personal assistants’.

The person is said to have been a former Red Bull employee and the phone call took place before Newey signed a new contract with his current team. Newey is said to have ‘declined with thanks’ before signing a new deal with Red Bull.

And Helmut Marko caught wind of the cheeky approach from Mercedes, sticking the knife into their rivals. He told F1 Insider: “Mr Wolff may not seem to have complete confidence have his own people fix the problems with their car.”

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner clearly had no concern of Newey potentially leaving before the new contract was signed. “Adrian and I work together, we’ve been sitting next to each other, for 18 years now,” Horner said last week.

“It was inevitable we were going to extend that. He’s a great part of the team, it’s great to have him with us and as the team continues to evolve we’ve got strength and depth, but to have Adrian for the longer term with us is fantastic for everyone in the team.”

Last year’s RB18 proved to be Newey’s most successful car saw his days at Williams back in 1996. His car design in 2022 helped both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez win 17 of the 22 races.

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