Adrian Newey will leave Red Bull in early 2025 after a hugely successful stint at the team after joining in 2006, winning 13 F1 titles.
The Briton has been integral to the Austrian outfit’s success, leading Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to a combined seven championships.
Multiple former Red Bull drivers praised the 65-year-old including Alex Albon who drove for Red Bull from after the summer break in 2019 to 2020.
“I can only speak about my relationship with Adrian, what I’ve been through. “He is a very nice person, I think everyone who knows him, he’s very humble, very open-minded, I got on very well with him.
“I think it will be interesting to see his next move. I’m sure every team is chasing him down to try and get hold of him.
“But whatever he chooses, if it’s retirement or racing, I wish him all the best, and obviously, our doors [at Williams] are always open as well.”
The Thai driver scored two podiums during his time with Red Bull at Mugello and in Bahrain before being replaced by Sergio Perez in 2021.
He added that Newey wanted to gain an understanding of how the car felt to drive and the particular nuances of the Red Bull cars.
“He was very connected to the driving side of it. He really wanted to know how it felt, and in some ways he still understood that the car needed to be set up in a certain way to get the most out of it.
“There are a couple of things I remember during my years, year and a bit with Red Bull, where I thought to myself ‘wow, a different way of working’.
“I don’t want to go into detail about it, but just one race to the next, ideas, philosophies to go around.
“Just very inspiring and very cool to see from a third person view seeing how he works.
“There’s lots of charts where you just kind of see him do his work, analysing everything.”
Frenchman Pierre Gasly had a brief stint at Red Bull for just half a season in 2019 but thoroughly enjoyed his time working with the 65-year-old.
The current Alpine driver said the Briton was one-of-a-kind and he was taken aback when observing Newey at work at the factory.
“A unique genius – extremely talented,” Gasly replied, answering a question about his recollections of working with Newey in Formula 1.
“The most successful engineer in the history of our sport, very particular approach – I still remember going to Milton Keynes and him drawing all sorts of stuff on this board and I thought: ‘is that how we draw F1 cars these days?’
“It’s just impressive and probably like my best memory from Red Bull, working with such a special individual.”
Daniel Ricciardo, who drove Newey-designed cars from 2014-2018 at Red Bull, light-heartedly discussed how walking into Newey’s office can be intimidating.
“Walking into his office is kind of intimidating because there’s a big design board.
“[You think] he’s probably going to ask me things that I have no idea what he’s talking about, and you are like: ‘I hope he doesn’t ask me too many questions, let’s just keep this fairly basic, for my own good.”
