Despite his difficult start with Aston Martin, Adrian Newey remains one of the true legends of the Formula 1 paddock. The British designer has played a key role in creating some of the most iconic cars in motorsport history.
However, none of those successes came with Ferrari — a team Newey never joined, despite coming close to a move to Maranello on three separate occasions: once in the 1990s, again in 2014, and most recently before committing to Lawrence Stroll’s Aston Martin project.
Newey and three rejections of Ferrari
The first time Newey turned down Ferrari was in 1993, at the beginning of Jean Todt’s tenure as general manager of the Scuderia.
Determined to quickly transform the team’s fortunes, Jean Todt attempted to convince Adrian Newey to join, at a time when the British engineer had just designed the dominant Williams FW15, which led Alain Prost to the championship.
More than 30 years later, Todt has now explained why that move never materialised.
Todt’s explanation
“We knew that to have a winning team we needed to choose the best mechanics, the best engineers, and the best partners. I remember that we had considered Adrian Newey, and there had been discussions. He did not want to come to Italy,” Jean Todt said on the High Performance podcast.
In the end, Jean Todt found a different path to success. In 1997, he secured the signings of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne from Benetton, forming the technical core that would later underpin Ferrari’s dominant era.
“I always had a lot of respect for Rory. I had already wanted him when I was managing the Peugeot Sport Cars programme, but he wanted to stay in Formula 1. And Ross was a reference point, a technical director. They did not know that I was negotiating with both of them.”
“I remember that after signing them, I said: ‘Listen, now you can tell each other that you have signed.’ Ross replied: ‘Okay, I’ll invite him for a beer tomorrow,’” Jean Todt concluded.
Jean Todt’s recollection of the pursuit of Adrian Newey highlights the delicate human factors that often shape the destiny of Formula 1. While a Newey-designed Ferrari remains the ultimate “what if” in the sport’s history, the resulting alliance of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, and Byrne proved that there is more than one way to build a dynasty. For Newey, the decision to stay in the UK allowed him to continue his dominance with Williams, McLaren, and eventually Red Bull, while Ferrari found its own path to glory through a different technical structure. As the 2026 season pushes forward, this story shows that in the world of high-performance racing, geography and personal preferences can be just as influential as wind tunnels and budgets.
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