Adrian Newey on Red Bull’s difficult years ahead of 2021
Red Bull has been back in the title race since the 2021 season. The result of years of hard work for the Austrian team, which had to endure some complicated seasons to return to the top.
The history of Red Bull in Formula 1 has been filled with obstacles, rough patches, but also world titles and records. While the Austrian team recently won several world championships and dominated the sport in the early 2010s, they often did not have the best car between 2014 and 2020.
Since 2021, Red Bull is experiencing the second period of success in its history. Adrian Newey has spoken about this frustrating period for the Austrian team, which comes immediately after 5 seasons at the forefront.
We were lucky to have a very good journey from 2009 to 2013.
But by the end of 2013, I honestly felt a bit tired. And then with the transition from V8s to hybrids, our engine partner during these years was never really able to provide a competitive unit.
This lack of competitiveness and reliability of the Renault engine caused a lot of trouble for Red Bull, which had an excellent chassis in certain seasons. The combination of the engine and the chassis did not work perfectly, and that is one of the reasons that pushed the team to end its collaboration with the French engine supplier at the end of the 2018 season.
I think that between 2014 and 2020, there were two or three occasions where we actually had the best chassis set, but we didn’t have a car that could win a championship as a complete package. It becomes a little demotivating – realizing that no matter the quality of your chassis, you still can’t win the championship.
