Widely regarded as one of the greatest engineers in Formula One history,[a] Newey's designs have won 12 World Constructors' Championship titles and 223 Grands Prix between 1991 and 2024.

On 1 May 2024, Red Bull Racing announced that Newey would leave his day-to-day Formula One design duties immediately and shift his focus to the RB17 hypercar (2025).

In 1984, Newey moved to the March Indy car project, working as designer and race engineer for Bobby Rahal at Truesports.

In 1986 Newey moved to Kraco to engineer Michael Andretti's car, while his March 86C design won the CART title and 1986 Indianapolis 500 with Bobby Rahal.

[14][15] Newey's first F1 design, the 1988 March 881, was far more competitive than many expected, with Ivan Capelli finishing second in Portugal, and even passing Alain Prost's McLaren-Honda turbo for the lead of the Japanese Grand Prix briefly on lap 16.

In France Capelli led the most part of the race and finished second after a late pass by Prost's Ferrari, but that proved to be the year's bright spot, with the team's results declining.

With a vastly superior budget, drivers and resources at his disposal, Newey and Head rapidly became the dominant design partnership of the early 1990s.

By mid-season 1991, Newey's FW14 chassis was every bit a match for the previously dominant McLaren, but early season reliability issues and the efforts of Ayrton Senna prevented Williams team leader Nigel Mansell from taking the title.

1994 saw a rare dip in performance for Newey-designed cars and the team and drivers struggled to match the Rory Byrne-designed Benetton B194 for pace and reliability.

Despite having a signed contract, Rahal was unable to complete the deal when McLaren boss Ron Dennis persuaded Newey to stay.

The Guardian reported that Newey would be getting around $10 million a year at Red Bull Racing after McLaren baulked at increasing his salary in contract renewal negotiations.

[18] Newey could hardly influence the design of the 2006 car and Red Bull's season started with poor results, having scored only two points from six races.

However, the team's lead driver, David Coulthard, who had driven Newey-designed cars for years for both Williams and McLaren, managed to secure third place and six points in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Technical directors Adrian Newey and Geoff Willis noted that the 2008 chassis was the most intricate design to have rolled out of their factory.

The season started well for the team, with Mark Webber scoring five consecutive points finishes and Coulthard claiming a podium at Montreal.

The car Newey designed for 2009 represented a large step up in performance for the team, with one–two finishes at Shanghai, in a rain affected race, and at the British Grand Prix, both won by Sebastian Vettel.

On 9 October 2011, Red Bull won the World Drivers' Championship, making Sebastian Vettel the youngest double champion in the history of F1.

The following year, despite initial concerns as to the car's superiority compared to the McLaren MP4-27 and a stern challenge from Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in the inferior F2012,[19][20] Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel once again claimed the championship at a dramatic 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix.

[30] Newey is set to leave Red Bull Racing during the first quarter of 2025 and step away from his Formula One duties while still working on their first hypercar on the trackside, the RB17.

In 2007, he made the move to modern racing, becoming part of the driver line-up in the AF Corse Ferrari F430 for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

On 15 June 2010, during the Sony E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo press conference, it was revealed that Newey collaborated as the chief technical officer for the video game Gran Turismo 5 for the PlayStation 3.

[36] On 8 August 2010, Newey was involved in an accident whilst taking part in the Ginetta G50 Cup at the Snetterton circuit as a guest driver.

[37] On 10 October 2018, Newey was announced as an advisory board member of the forthcoming W Series, a racing championship for women based on Formula 3-homologated Tatuus T-318 chassis.

[41] They had a daughter, and son Harrison, who became a racing driver,[42] winning both the 2016–17 MRF Challenge Formula 2000 Championship and the 2017–18 Asian Le Mans Series.