Horner on Newey, Wheatley exits: The show goes on

The 2024 Formula 1 season started in a bad way for Red Bull with Horner's sexting scandal, and despite the Briton surviving and keeping his job, his team endured a tough season that saw them fail to defend their constructors' title while losing key personnel on the way.

Newey announced he would leave Red Bull back in May, and since the Miami Grand Prix weekend, the design guru has relinquished all his F1 involvement, focusing on Red Bull's hypercar project, the RB17.

Then in August, the team's sporting director, Wheatley, announced he would be leaving to join Audi as team principal, as the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was his last race at the Red Bull pit wall.

Both Newey and Wheatley have been with Red Bull since the beginning, when the team rose from the ashes of the struggling Jaguar F1 operation and played key roles in the team's successes. Four championship doubles with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2013 and six titles with Max Verstappen between 2021 and 2024.

With 2025 being the final F1 season under the current regulations and with new chassis and power unit rules set to debut in 2026, teams will be under pressure to manage car development between 2025 and 2026, and Red Bull are under more pressure after losing Newey while they are also developing their own power unit for 2026.

But Horner is confident his team will overcome these losses; he told Motorsport.com: "There's only two going, and obviously, Adrian left in Miami, so we haven't seen him.

"He's been working on the RB17 since then, so he's not been working on any F1 projects. Obviously, sad to see them go. They’ve both played important roles in the team over their tenure in the team.

"But the show goes on, and I think we’ve got the strength and depth we’ve got. We have that, and arguably 2026—what we're gearing up for in 2026 with our own power unit—is by far the biggest challenge and the most ambitious project this team has ever taken on.

"So, 2025, Jonathan will step off the pit wall but other than that, everything remains the same," Horner insisted, adding his team will evolve rather than rebuild, adding: "I would say rebuild goes way too far for two people that have left. It's evolution.

"It's something that has been on the cards for a little while, so something that has been part of the planning for some time."

Red Bull has lost several other members and did some restructuring from within, the most significant being the promotion of Verstappen's race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, into the position of head of racing.

But that doesn't mean Lambiase will stop working with Verstappen. Horner explained: "He’ll still be working directly with Max. He just takes on a broader role, obviously, as he steps up.

"It's just a natural progression trackside with those personnel," the 51-year-old added of the restructuring process. "It's great because it gives them an opportunity, and sometimes an organization, if it remains stagnant, it fails to progress.

"So, I think this is a fantastic opportunity of progression for many people in the team that have been long-standing team members that deserve that opportunity," Horner concluded.

Red Bull will also have a new driver lineup in 2025 as Liam Lawson was chosen to replace Sergio Perez alongside Verstappen after the Mexican struggled to stay close to the Dutchman in 2024.