Revealed: Why Ferrari backed away from $100m fight for Adrian Newey

Have Ferrari once again lost out on signing Adrian Newey?

Ferrari reportedly withdrew from the race to hire Adrian Newey to avoid a bidding war after Aston Martin made a more lucrative offer.

PlanetF1.com understands Newey’s move to the Aston Martin will be announced in the build-up to next week’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Aston Martin have reportedly won the race to sign Adrian Newey

While Newey has been heavily linked to Aston Martin in recent months, it was initially Ferrari who were leading the running when the design guru announced in May that he will leave Red Bull in early 2025.

From a visit to Maranello to a private meeting at an airport, Ferrari courted Newey with team boss Fred Vasseur’s “couple of names with five letters” cryptic tease back in July seen as a hint that 25-time championship-winner would be the one to replace the Aston Martin-bound Enrico Cardile, who was formerly Ferrari’s head of their chassis design department.

But six weeks later, it’s Aston Martin who are expected to announce the 65-year-old, and do so in the coming days, after Ferrari withdrew from the negotiations.

While it was suggested that the right to veto the hiring of technical staff played more of a role in that than finances, Motorsport.com claims it was actually about money with Ferrari wanting to avoid a bidding war.

Although Vasseur is said to have secured the budget to sign Newey, after Aston Martin made him an offer that’s believed to be in the region of $100m, they walked away from the table.

More on Adrian Newey’s Red Bull exit

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Life after Adrian Newey: Meet the man set to take over Red Bull’s technical programme

Ferrari will instead promote from within with Vasseur telling the media including PlanetF1.com that an announcement will be made in the near future.

“Yeah, I have an announcement, is that I told you that we will do the announcement after Monza,” he said, adding that the structure of the team will “be the topic of the announcement.”

Ferrari already confirmed the signing of Mercedes’ Loic Serra earlier this year, who will take up the role of head of chassis performance later in 2024, reuniting with Lewis Hamilton next season.

Aston Martin, meanwhile, will hold a press conference on September 10 in which they’re expected to announce Newey.

Eddie Jordan, Newey’s manager and long-time friend, declined to comment on the matter, telling the BBC: “I am not prepared to answer – I will not be forthcoming in any shape or form.”

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