The driver Newey always wanted on his team arrived on Red Bull’s doorstep in 2013

During Adrian Newey’s years at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull Racing, the Brit signed the cars that helped the sport’s biggest stars become champions: from Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Mika Häkkinen to Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.

But among the great champions with whom he was never lucky enough to work, Newey singles out two-time world champion (2005-06) Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard, driving for Ferrari, lost the title in 2010 by just 4 points to Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Newey, and in 2012 also by 3 points to the German.

But Alonso’s 2012 season with the far less competitive Ferrari – compared to this year’s Red Bull – was one of the most dazzling performances by a driver in F1 history.

The 2012-2013 biennium was a transitional period. Newey seriously considered Ferrari’s offer to move to Maranello at the start of the sport’s hybrid engine era in 2014, while Fernando Alonso was close to signing with Red Bull Racing in the fall of 2013.

After the end of the 2013 Belgian GP, ​​according to the BBC, Newey and Alonso met in a car at the airport to discuss the Spaniard’s possible move to Milton Keynes. “You have a very good memory,” said the Brit, “that’s something I regret never happened because I have great respect for Fernando.”

The truth is that I try, first of all, to live in the present and for the future and not in the past. What if I regret something? NO. “I just feel incredibly lucky to have been given the opportunity to work with the people I’ve worked with and get to know the people I’ve met,” added the Red Bull Racing technical director.

At the last race before Spa 2013 at the end of July, Alonso was asked what he wanted for his 32nd birthday and he joked “someone else’s car.”. This sparked an angry reaction from then Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, who responded to Alonso’s statements with an official statement. At the same time, Alonso publicly denied any contact with Red Bull.

If Newey had gone to Jaguar

Back in Newey we know that the Brit had several requests from Ferrari to go to Maranello. But now he has spoken about the approach taken by Jaguar, Ford’s official factory team in the early 2000s, which failed miserably.

So much so that Ford sold it to Red Bull at the end of 2003 – it was the same Milton Keynes team that the Austrian company transformed into a champion in six years – and signed Adrian Newey along the way (in 2006).

If Newey had gone to Jag and made it successful, perhaps Ford would have stayed in the sport and perhaps history would have been different for Red Bull. Speaking about it on another occasion – as part of this year’s Motorsport Industry Week – Newey said: “I would like to work with Bobby [Ρέιχαλ, τότε διευθυντή της Jaguar F1]. We always had a very good friendship, which continued even after I left Indycars [προς το τέλος της δεκαετίας του 1980] for the formula 1

I was a little attracted to this opportunity jaguars, But I also realized that there were a lot of political issues at the administrative level and that stressed me out a little. It’s one of those situations where you say, “What if…” It would have been great to see how this would have played out in a parallel universe.added Adrian Newey.

For his part, Bobby Reichal spoke about the difficulties he faced in getting Ford management to sign the large check for Newey’s services. A few months earlier, the Blue Oval’s board of directors discovered with great surprise that the company’s highest-paid employee (with an annual salary of $10 million) was Jaguar F1 driver Eddie Irvine.