Ex-F1 champion claims ‘snowball’ effect of Red Bull co-founder’s death reason behind Adrian Newey’s exit

Jacques Villeneuve reckoned that Dietrich Mateschitz's death was the start of tensions at Red Bull.


Ex-F1 champion claims ‘snowball’ effect of Red Bull co-founder’s death reason behind Adrian Newey’s exit

Adrian Newey and Dietrich Mateschitz (images via IMAGO)

Adrian Newey will be leaving the Red Bull family by early 2025. The Englishman hasn’t revealed the exact reasons for the unexpected departure. However, multiple people have guessed the ever-growing tensions between the top spots might be the reason. Amidst this, Jacques Villeneuve shared his thoughts on the reasons for Newey’s unexpected exit from the Austrian constructor.

Jacques Villeneuve recalled Dietrich Mateschitz‘s leadership and how everything went south after the death of the Red Bull co-founder. The former world champion claimed that Mateschitz was holding the ring and kept everything together at Red Bull. However, after his death, the pyramid was gone and the internal fighting started, involving outside people as well. The entire situation escalated like a snowball effect and hence no one had control over it, which led to Adrian Newey‘s exit from the team.

Dietrich was holding the ring. He was holding everyone in place. The pyramid has gone at Red Bull so now the internal fighting has started. It involves even people that should be on the outside which is strange. The situation has been like a snowball effect. There’s more than two parties that are pulling strings.
Jacques Villeneuve said, as reported by cryptocasino.ltd.
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Additionally, the entire matter got too personal and was brought out publicly. Hence, this further caused a reaction from Adrian Newey to make such a difficult decision. Apart from this, the Red Bull domination had some people create problems when they didn’t exist. Villeneuve asserted that due to such circumstances, it was very hard to continue such a domination for so long in Formula 1.

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It’s got too personal which is crazy. Why can’t it be done behind closed doors? It’s human nature. People don’t sit on their laurels. People find problems even when things are going well. That’s why it’s very hard to have dominance for a long time because somebody will want more out of it.
Jacques Villeneuve

Jacques Villeneuve explains why Adrian Newey was crucial to Red Bull

Adrian Newey designed all of Red Bull’s championship-winning F1 cars. Although Newey wasn’t “irreplaceable”, having someone of such high caliber was of great essence for the Austrian constructor. Speaking on the tensions, Villeneuve reckoned that a lot was going on at Red Bull which was unrelated to racing. Someone was adding fuel to the fire which further increased issues in the team.

It’s understandable that he’s leaving Red Bull, There’s too much going on that has nothing to do with racing. It’s relentless and doesn’t want to go away.  There’s someone that’s putting fuel in the fire and the fact they are winning every race is not enough.
Jacques Villeneuve reckoned.
Adrian Newey and Max Verstappen
Adrian Newey and Max Verstappen (Via: Imago)

Additionally, the Canadian labeled Newey as a ‘visionary’ and highlighted the Briton’s importance to the team. Villeneuve explained that in the Englishman’s absence, Red Bull still would’ve scored race victories. Hence according to the former world champion, the 65-year-old wasn’t the ‘answer to everything.’ Yet, keeping Newey around was important because he had been the best for so many years at Red Bull.

He’s a visionary, you can win without him so he’s not the answer to everything but it’s better to have him than not have him because he’s been the best for so many years.
Jacques Villeneuve concluded.

However, Red Bull might still take a big hit in terms of performance by the 2026 season. The Englishman would likely continue in Formula 1 with some other constructor by the coming season. The coming couple of weeks will be highly interesting to spectate the course of action for the 65-year-old.

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