New Red Bull Contract For Star Designer Newey

Red Bull have succeeded in retaining the services of Adrian Newey after the star designer committed to a new "multi-year deal", however, in what appears to be a significant shift in his role going forward, he will also now work on "new Red Bull Technology projects".

The future of Newey, who joined Red Bull when still a midfield team in 2006, has been at the centre of fevered speculation in recent weeks following the revelation that he had been offered a name-your-price deal to join struggling rivals Ferrari.

Although Newey said ahead of the Monaco GP that he would stay at the reigning World Champions for the "foreseeable future", the ambiguity of the statement left room for interpretation as to how long the multiple title-winning technical chief was intending to stay at the helm of their technical department.

On race-day morning in Canada Red Bull announced they had tied the 55-year-old to a multi-year deal, but the team's explanation of Newey's responsibilities going forward implied he would be taking some level of step back from their F1 operation.

"As part of this new agreement, Adrian will work on new Red Bull Technology projects, as well as advising and mentoring Infiniti Red Bull Racing as it develops its Formula 1 cars over the next few seasons," Red Bull's statement read.

"The details of the new projects will be announced in due course."

Although unspecified at this stage, initial speculation suggests the new projects will be outside of F1, Newey having long made clear his desire to eventually work in other fields after two decades of design success with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull.