F1 News: Mercedes Chief Remains Coy On Adrian Newey Recruitment

Mercedes Chief Toto Wolff discusses the possibility of Adrian Newey joining the team.

Adrian Newey / Red Bull Content Pool

The possible recruitment of Adrian Newey, the renowned motorsports engineer associated with Red Bull Racing’s incredible successes, is stirring speculation across the industry. Newey has also been linked with top teams such as Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, and Williams following the announcement of his impending exit from Red Bull.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, conversed candidly about the pros and cons of potentially incorporating Newey into his team. Wolff praised Newey’s venerable status within the sport, remarking, as quoted by Crash.net:

“No team can discount Adrian. But he needs to fit into the organisation and he needs to want it. So, I think, you’ve got to always look at opportunities. It’s not like, today, we are waiting for a messiah.”

Mercedes has been openly addressing its recent performance issues, particularly those exacerbated by the 2022 F1 regulation changes. Wolff admitted:

“Formula 1 is about physics. An engineer would say ‘it is simple, change the physics of the car’. But the truth is that humans make decisions.

“I believe the decisions we took were partially wrong in 2021. We have remedied that. We have changed the structure - people left, people joined.

“We have diligence in how our meetings are organised. This is the main reason we have made a step forward.”

These adjustments are starting to bear fruit. The team celebrated a notable victory with George Russell’s win at the Austrian Grand Prix, which was their first since 2022 and came about after a critical collision between competitors Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

"The days you lose are the days that your competitors regret because you learn the most. It was bad, at times, but important to develop the team into the next phase.”