Adrian Newey Reveals that Red Bull were Close to Signing Fernando Alonso

Red Bull’s technical guru, Adrian Newey has admitted that he would have loved to work with Fernando Alonso. The Red Bull designer’s comments are highly convenient, considering rumours that Alonso may return to Formula One with one of the top teams.

Adrian Newey is regarded as one of the best technical minds and one of F1’s most famous designers. While speaking to Spanish magazine Esquire, he gushed about Alonso and dubbed him as “one of the greats of the modern era”.

“Working with him would have been fantastic,” mused Newey. “He seems to have had bad luck with some choices he has made, but whenever we have spoken with him, he has been very kind.

“Fernando’s ability often exceeds the car in his hands. I think that’s the mark of a truly great driver — the ability to stand out despite not having a great car.”

Another interesting rumour that has been floating about, is the potential return of Sebastian Vettel to Red Bull from Ferrari. Newey also addressed those rumours, confessing that an Alonso-Vettel partnership at Red Bull would have been “like Ayrton and Alain”.

“It is one of those things that unfortunately never happened, but it was very close to happening,” he revealed.

“I think we would have had a lot of success all together, but it didn’t work out,” said the Briton. “Red Bull has generally always tried to follow the policy of developing its own drivers. That was a small consideration.”

“We met a couple of times and there were negotiations in Austria,” Newey revealed. “It was close, but in the end it didn’t happen.”

In the end, the Fernando Alonso and Red Bull rumours may be getting dumped in the ‘what could have been’ trash can. Back when Fernando Alonso was in his prime, he often gave Sebastian Vettel a run for his money.

For now though, Red Bull seem perfectly content with their current pairing of Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly. Admittedly, the Frenchman took a while to keep up with his more experienced teammate. This prompted rumours of him possibly getting the sack for underperforming. The good news is that, if recent performances are to be considered, Gasly is finding his feet and starting to get competitive.