Red Bull chiefs have new ‘fear’ after Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley exits

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Amid title success for them in the last three years, things are changing dramatically behind closed doors for Red Bull.

Chief technical officer Adrian Newey announced he would be leaving his post earlier this year and prior to the summer break, it was revealed that sporting director Jonathan Wheatley will be leaving to take up a team principal role at Audi.

Newey’s next move is unknown but it is expected to be Aston Martin after an offer from billionaire owner Lawrence Stroll, although rumours recently emerged that Alpine have put in a last-minute bid for Newey’s services.

Red Bull lost another member of their inner success circle in the form of technical chief Rob Marshall, who former Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer believes took some of their ‘secret sauce’ to McLaren.

A report from AMuS claims that the next Red Bull ‘fear’ is over what Wheatley and Newey’s move will entail and whether it will lead to a purge of employees.

READ MORE: All to know about Jonathan Wheatley as Audi/Sauber sign new team principal

Red Bull’s ‘fear’ after Adrian Newey departure

Newey reportedly ‘demanded’ he could bring several engineers over to Aston Martin, which is why Ferrari initially rejected his offer.

Wheatley was the key proponent that created Red Bull’s world-class pit stop team, enabling them to get their pit stops down to within 1.9 seconds consistently.

The fear is that the ‘confidants’ of the pair could end up leaving to join either Audi or Newey in his next team.

This has already happened to ex-Red Bull chief mechanic Lee Stevenson, who was a pit stop gunman and responsible for building, fine-tuning, and maintaining Max Verstappen’s car, left his post to join Sauber after 18 years.

Red Bull later secured the services of chief engineer, Paul Monaghan, to maintain some stability in their technical organisation.

Red Bull nearly lost key technical members this year

Red Bull was close to losing other key members of the technical staff including Pierre Wache this season, when the Frenchman was reportedly approached by Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur.

Vasseur recognised Wache played an important role in Red Bull’s recent upturn and plotted to have him join alongside Newey.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Red Bull Racing from engine to Ford links

But Wache instead elected to extend his contract with Red Bull, along with head of aerodynamics Enrico Balbo and head of performance engineering Ben Waterhouse.

While the F1 driver market has been in full swing this season, there has been just as much activity behind the scenes as teams get their affairs in order ahead of F1’s next significant regulation cycle in 2026.