Adrian Newey’s request that an organization of 20 engineers sign him up at Ferrari is the cause of the “abrupt stop” of negotiations between the two parties, it has been claimed.
Newey announced in May that he would leave Red Bull at the beginning of 2025, having been instrumental in the team’s good fortune with Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen since joining McLaren in 2006.
Ferrari had been considered a heavy favourite to sign Newey, and the terms of his departure from Red Bull, negotiated through his manager Eddie Jordan, the former owner of the F1 team, allowed him to start working with the team in 2025, thus avoiding the era of gardening licence, a common occurrence in F1 contracts.
He claimed Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur had travelled to London just days after Newey’s departure from Red Bull was made public in a bid to seal the deal.
However, several reports in recent weeks have claimed that Ferrari is behind Aston Martin and McLaren in the race to secure Newey’s signature.
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Reports last month claimed Newey had visited the Aston Martin factory in Silverstone after receiving a tempting monetary proposal from team owner Lawrence Stroll at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend in March.
This week it was claimed that Ferrari chief executive Benedetto Vigna had opposed Newey’s pay demands and expressed considerations that the F1 design guru would maintain the top force within the team if he moved to Maranello.
A report published on Friday via the prestigious Italian publication La Gazzetta dello Sport shed light on the nature of Newey’s demands, with the 65-year-old reportedly requesting that up to 20 of the most sensible engineers sign up for him in Italy.
While Ferrari would be willing to offer Newey a salary of $10 million a year as a technical supervisor, the team fears that the hiring of 20 engineers “of some importance” would “weigh heavily” on the Scuderia’s ability to meet F1’s costs. . lid.
It has been proposed that some of Newey’s lieutenants could be assigned to run the Ferrari World Endurance Championship – which last month triumphed in the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans races for the second year in a row – to alleviate those problems. budget limit, but it seems that this solution would have been “a simple or decisive option. ”
Newey’s preference to continue living in the United Kingdom is also seen as an impediment to an imaginable deal with Ferrari, although it is claimed that the existing impasse is “perhaps not insurmountable”.
As Ferrari’s hopes of landing Newey fade, so do rumors at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix that the Scuderia has turned its attention to Red Bull aerodynamics chief Enrico Balbo. .
Ferrari is recently looking for a new technical director after Enrico Cardile announced earlier this month that he would be joining Aston Martin, and recently Vasseur himself oversaw the chassis look on an interim basis.
Rumours linking Ferrari to Balbo are said to be “barely credible” after Red Bull recently linked him and technical director Pierre Wache to a multi-year contract following a 2023 Prancing Horse.
Balbo and Wache’s resolve to pursue a new direction of progression with the 2024 Red Bull car, the RB20, is also cited as “one of the causes” of Newey’s resolve to leave the team.
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