Lewis Hamilton discusses prospects of Ferrari poaching Adrian Newey from Red Bull

Lewis Hamilton recently gave his views on aero wizard Adrian Newey's potential move from Red Bull to Ferrari.

Christian Horner's investigation controversy has undoubtedly tainted Red Bull's public image. The Austrian-British team is knee-deep in all the chaos surrounding its team principal. Rumors are now surfacing that their chief technical officer, Adrian Newey, could be leaving if the team continues to be surrounded by controversies.

Given that Lewis Hamilton announced his move to Ferrari after the 2024 F1 season, he was asked whether Newey could leave Red Bull and join the Italian giants in the future.

Speaking to the media during the 2024 F1 Saudi Arabian GP, the seven-time world champion stated that his explosive transfer announcement proved that anything was possible.

“I think my move has shown that anything’s possible and it’s going to be a really interesting next six months or so...In terms of Adrian, having worked within the team [Red Bull], I know obviously Adrian gets all the praise for everybody’s work. I know he’s a huge part of it, of course, but I know there are so many engineers in the background that are a huge part of developing the team and the car that they have and it’s not down to one person,” Hamilton said.

Lewis Hamilton also praised Newey's achievements with Red Bull and commented on his importance to the team.

“So it’s not my decision. I’m competing against him this year at the moment, so I can’t really talk about next year so far just yet,” he added.

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Red Bull team boss reveals how he stopped Adrian Newey from joining Ferrari

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner shared an anecdote of the time Ferrari offered Adrian Newey a lucrative deal to come to work for them.

At the start of the hybrid engine era, the Austrian-British team was struggling with their new power unit. During that time, Newey was approached by Ferrari to join them.

Speaking on the Eff Won podcast, Horner shared the way in which he managed to keep the aero wizard on his team.

"We went from winning ’10, ’11, ’12, ’13, four on the bounce, and then a massive regulation change to the engine and our engine supplier completely missed the target," Horner said. "And at that point, Vettel leaves because of the engine, Adrian came very close to leaving, he was within about half an hour of signing [for Ferrari]," he said. (via motorsportweek)

Christian Horner further stated that he convinced Newey by promising him the chance to build a brand-new road car, something the latter wanted to do for quite some time.

"I managed to persuade him to stay by saying: ‘We’ll do a road car. If you want to do a road car, we’ll do a road car. He said, ‘Well, how?’ – and I said I have no idea, but we’ll find a way. We’ll make it. We’ll make it happen. And that’s literally in a pub in England, that’s how it happened,” he said.

Adrian Newey did go on to work on the Aston Martin Valkyrie project. The car has a naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 engine that creates 160 horsepower.