- Red Bull
Newey 'very much involved' in design of 2015 Red Bull
Red Bull boss Christian Horner has warned his rivals that Adrian Newey is "still very much involved" in the design of the team's 2015 car.
Earlier this year Red Bull announced that Newey would be stepping back from the F1 team in order to take on other projects, including working with Ben Ainslie's Americas Cup sailing team. However, Horner said Newey's involvement in the 2015 car is still significant and revealed that he will still be present at some tests and races.
"Adrian is taking a little bit of a step back, but he's still very much involved," Horner said. "He's overseen the design of the new car and will be coming to some of the races and he'll be at some of the pre-season tests as well. He is going to be splitting his time between Formula One and Red Bull Advanced Technologies.
"We recently announced a project with Ben Ainslie Racing, a British Americas Cup entry, which is primarily focused on simulation and mathematical modelling. It's great to still have Adrian as part of the team and still advising and mentoring Dan Fallows, Rob Marshall, Pierre Wache and Paul Monaghan. We have such a strong senior technical team."
Horner said Red Bull's biggest challenge next year will come from trying to close the gap to Mercedes' power unit.
"From a regulation point of view, nothing really will change. It's down to the teams to try and catch Mercedes now and we have a lot of work going on with Renault to try and reduce that gap. Those guys [Mercedes] aren't going to stand still either.
"We have an exciting new driver line up next year in Daniel Ricciardo and Dany Kvyat and that's going to be an exciting new dynamic and they are going to be pushing very hard.
"We're going to see Sebastian [Vettel] in red which is going to be a bit different and weird for the first few races. I think we're set for a fantastic season, Fernando Alonso in McLaren... again. I think it's going to be a season of change."
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