Monaghan contradicts stories about Newey: 'Never cut off from the process'
Monaghan contradicts stories about Newey: 'Never cut off from the process'
Paul Monaghan is sad about Adrian Newey's departure. In an exclusive interview with GPblog, the Red Bull Racing chief engineer reveals that he regrets Newey's departure and that the team will miss his expertise considerably. This is a stark contrast to previous statements made by people within the team.
According to Helmut Marko, Max Verstappen and Christian Horner, Adrian Newey's departure is a loss for the team, but not as big a loss as everyone thinks. Newey was said to have been less involved with the F1 team for years and, therefore, has less of an influence on the current car's design. It turns out that is not quite the case after all.
Monaghan had been working with Newey for quite a long time. 'Pedals', as Paul's nickname goes, already worked with Newey at McLaren and moved to Red Bull Racing almost simultaneously. Monaghan has been involved in Red Bull Racing's F1 project since day one and knows better than anyone how much influence Newey has had on it. After all, Newey designs the car, and he has to squeeze the maximum out of every weekend.
Why Newey's departure is a loss for Red Bull
"I suppose my overwhelming reaction to Adrian's leaving is one of sadness. He contributed so much to the growth and the evolution of the team and drove us towards the first championships, 10, 11, 12, and 13, with such vigour and commitment. It was always quite eye-opening when he got those little opportunities to see what he wanted to achieve and his thoughts," Monaghan said.
"They were equally wonderful lessons, and I hope I was humble enough to learn from it. He's a pretty switched-on chap. The track record rather speaks for itself as we evolved through the first years of the hybrid [era] and then obviously picking up the Honda engine. Then again you see different cars with a different set of rules in 2022. He was never, whatever anybody says, cut off from the process. He was still pin sharp for me and quite insightful."
In doing so, Monaghan contradicts the narrative put out by Red Bull. The team frequently stated that Newey had long since ceased to be as involved with Red Bull as he had been in the past. Newey was reportedly busier with the RB17 Hypercar and spent less time at the factory developing the F1 car, a story that Monaghan clearly contradicts.
"If he wants to stop, I have full respect and say, OK, it's entirely his choice. On a personal basis, I will miss his input and the humbling explanations when I haven't understood something. He then embellishes you on how it's supposed to work and what we're supposed to do. It's just different, isn't it? But times change and he's made his own decision. I'm a bit sad because it's a loss to the team, and he's contributed so much to it that I think it's just a shame," he added.
What Monaghan could learn from Newey
And so, does Monaghan have an example of what he learned from Newey? ''Yes, there were plenty of them. Quite often, it is rather humbling for me [laughs]. We had a bit of trouble with the consistency of the steering in the car. We couldn't understand it. And so there's some circumstantial evidence as to what was going on. You can talk to him a bit. Then we slowly evolved to think, OK, now we're beginning to grasp something. Now we're evolving. Now we're learning."
"It was a collaborative process. His openness to ideas, thoughts, and considerations was always brilliant. It didn't matter where the idea came from. After some thoughts, inquiries, and a few questions, if he thought it was a good idea, we would proceed with it at whatever pace we had to go, whatever size of the change might be. If he thought it was a stupid idea, I generally found out fairly quickly," Monaghan said.
GPblog spoke at length with Monaghan about his role as Chief Engineer at Red Bull Racing, how he gets the most out of Max Verstappen's car and what his future at the team looks like in the coming years. You can read all that and more on our website soon.