Newey reveals ‘emotional’ F1 regret: ‘Not working with Fernando or Lewis’

Newey has been with Red Bull since 2006, playing a major role in their success in the early 2010s with Sebastian Vettel and now with Max Verstappen.

The 64-year-old has worked with a number of F1 legends throughout his illustrious career - Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost at Williams; Mika Hakkinen at McLaren.

However, Newey has revealed he wished he got the chance to work with Alonso and Hamilton - two of F1’s modern greats - as well as Ferrari, who he was close to joining on at least two occasions. 

“Emotionally, I guess, to a point. Yes,” Newey said when asked if he had any regrets about not joining Ferrari on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.

“But just as, for instance, working with Fernando and Lewis would have been fabulous. But it never happened. It’s just circumstance sometimes, that’s the way it is.”

Newey was close to joining Ferrari in 2014 after growing frustrated by Renault’s lack of commitment to the sport. - at the time, Renault were Red Bull’s engine supplier.

“My discussions in 2014 with Ferrari were purely out of frustration,” Newey explained.

“I really didn’t want to leave but we were in this position where Renault hadn’t produced a competitive turbo hybrid engine.

“That happens in the first year, OK, new rules. We all make mistakes.

“But we went to see Carlos Ghosn [former Renault CEO], Christian, Helmut and myself to try to put pressure on him to up the budget.

“Ghosn’s reply was ‘Well, I have no interest in F1. I’m only in it because my marketing people say I should be. That was such a depressing place to be.”