Mario Andretti pinpoints moment that derailed Red Bull’s F1 dominance
Mario Andretti revealed the crucial reason for Red Bull's downfall in the highly entertaining 2024 campaign.

Mario Andretti, image via IMAGO
Red Bull started the 2024 season with a car that was the fastest on the track. However, this soon changed and the last win scored by the Austrian giant came over eight races ago. This led former F1 champion Mario Andretti to assert Adrian Newey‘s departure as the reason behind Red Bull’s downfall.
Adrian Newey joined Red Bull in 2006 and has been an integral part of managing the chassis and aerodynamics of the Austrian team’s challengers. However, the day he announced his exit from the team, Red Bull lost the subsequent race in Miami, where the McLaren MCL38 was arguably the fastest car.
Though many people might have thought that this was a coincidence, Mario Andretti reckoned otherwise and asserted that Newey was never given enough credit in Milton Keynes.
I’m going to say something that I feel, again, that whether it’s by coincidence or not, but the minute that Adrian Newey distanced himself [from] the team, things started to go wrong. In my opinion he was never given credit due for his ability to really do magic things in Formula One. I’m a big Adrian Newey fan because I worked with him even at the beginning of his career. I’ve never worked with anyone that I felt understood me clearly [at] every moment when I was out there. His abilities are something that are incredible
Mario Andretti said in an interview with GPBlog
With Newey now destined to join Aston Martin, Red Bull would have to save their boat from drowning in the tightening field. With the new administration taking over, the team might not have the capability to save its dwindling 2024 campaign.
Would Red Bull regret losing Adrian Newey?
Adrian Newey has been a success-bringer to every team that he has worked with in the past three decades. Moreover, with the teams he has left over the years drowning in the F1 field, the possibility of Red Bull not being able to retain the bragging rights for the subsequent seasons becomes even more real.

Subsequently, ex-team owner Eddie Jordan elaborated on how the 65-year-old was tempted to move to the Silverstone-based team and had a strong faith that the English team would become successful under Newey’s reigns.
I think Honda being a partner from ’26 will be important to Adrian, because he believes to have a strategic manufacturer online is crucially important. To have Andy Cowell there, he was the man behind all of those successes at Mercedes, [a] genius, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed that he’s obviously now in the fold with them. With Honda and with Adrian and with the people that he will get together, I have no doubt that it’s good.
Eddie Jordan said on the Formula For Success podcast
With Honda joining hands with Aston Martin, experts within the paddock have remained highly optimistic about the partnership rendering fruitful results. Moreover, with the design wizard being a co-owner of the English team, his will to make the Aston Martin project work would be going through the roof.
Despite this, Aston Martin would require quite a lot of time to get settled in as Newey’s contributions could only affect the 2026 cars owing to his gardening leave. Thus, the team would have to utilize its existing resources to produce results next year and make it a big name in the F1 sphere.
Geetansh Pasricha
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