Why the latest Red Bull exit is part of its brain drain

At the end of 2023, all was well in the land of Red Bull after a season of unprecedented success with Max Verstappen and its RB19 machine claiming the F1 drivers' and constructors' titles. 

Verstappen set a host of F1 records, including 19 wins from 22 races, 1,003 laps led and 575 championship points as the car itself won 21 times. Singapore was the only blot on an otherwise pristine copybook. 

But early into the new year, the first rumblings of discontent erupted with the power struggle at the top of the team engulfing the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend after allegations of misconduct and an internal investigation into Christian Horner was launched. 

Horner denied all the claims against him, and an appeal by the employee at the centre of the case was dismissed.

But the split at the top of the team, with Horner on one side and Helmut Marko/Jos Verstappen and Oliver Mintzlaff, the managing director of Red Bull's parent company on the other, has led to something of an uneasy truce 

No doubt that was aided by the fact that Red Bull and Verstappen won seven of the first 10 races in 2024, with both team and driver enjoying handsome leads in the standings after that latest victory in the Spanish GP. 

But since Barcelona, the form of the RB20 has nosedived, with even Verstappen floundering as Red Bull was finally overtaken in the constructors' by McLaren after Azerbaijan, leaving the papaya team now favourites for a first title since 1998.

Fortunately, Verstappen still holds a 52-point lead in the drivers' standings from Lando Norris and a big upgrade package is on the way for the United States GP in Austin, but alarm bells should still be ringing at Milton Keynes.

Red Bull's brain drain

There is a brain drain going on at Red Bull at the moment, with the latest key technical figure to jump ship being Will Courtenay - the head of race strategy - who is off to McLaren. 

Courtenay is the second key Red Bull cog to head to Woking in a year after chief engineering officer Rob Marshall departed.

Long-time sporting director Jonathan Wheatley is also off to take up the team principal role at Stake before Audi's 2026 arrival, whilst arguably, the biggest name to hand his notice in has been chief technical officer Adrian Newey. 

After 19 years with the team and seeing his cars win over 100 races and seven drivers' and six constructors' titles to date, Newey will join Aston Martin on March 1, 2025.

With Newey, Red Bull and Horner have been at pains to stress that most of the day-to-day technical work has been carried out in recent times by highly-rated technical director Pierre Wache and head of aerodynamics Ben Waterhouse, but the loss of a figure as big as Newey cannot be overstated. 

He is to be reunited with his former number two Dan Fallows, who left for Aston in 2022.

Troubled times ahead

The exits of key technical and structural personnel will have a destabilising impact on Red Bull.

No team, even the most successful, would not be affected by such big losses so close together, at a time when the team needs to be stable to work through the huge in-house project of creating its own engine - with the Red Bull Powertrains venture set to be supported by Ford.

Horner has claimed that RBPT has managed to lure over 200 people from Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, but it is understood a large percentage of this number were short-term contractors whose contracts at HPP ended and were subsequently picked up by RBPT. 

There is also an uncommonly high number of transfers between teams of key technical staff being poached, Courtenay being the latest example. 

But Red Bull has somewhat missed the boat.

In response to Wheatley's departure, Red Bull reshuffled its cards, handing Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase a significant promotion to fend off interest from Ferrari. 

But holding onto your key staff is not the same as poaching one of your rivals and destabilising them. Red Bull has been unable to snare a key difference-maker from outside the team, and there are only so many internal reshuffles before the idea is exposed.

These are uncertain times for Red Bull both on-track and off it, as the all-conquering team of just 12 months ago faces some uncomfortable questions as the massive change of 2026 comes hurtling towards them.