Horner: Newey still loves F1

Red Bull announced during the 2014 season that its chief technical officer would be stepping back from full-time F1 involvement to head up the 'Advanced Technologies' department at the Milton Keynes squad, which recently announced it would work with Olympic sailor Ben Ainslie on an America's Cup project.

Newey has repeatedly expressed frustration at the increasingly restrictive nature of modern F1 regulations, but Horner denied Newey's step back into a mentoring and advisory role within the Red Bull F1 team meant he had lost his passion for the sport.

"Adrian has been in a transitionary phase this year where he stepped back a little more from the operational side, but he's still very much been involved and has been in the 2015 car," Horner told AUTOSPORT.

"As we develop the Advanced Technology side of the business, he's going to be having a key involvement in that, but Formula 1 will still burn deeply inside of him and he enjoys working within our environment and feeding off the engineers.

"Despite the fact it will be a diminished involvement from Adrian, it's still a very positive one."

Horner said Red Bull was still growing stronger in F1, despite Newey's altered role and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel's defection to Ferrari.

"I think the team is growing stronger and has done this year, which has arguably been one of our biggest achievements in the past six years to fight our way back into the championship," Horner added.

"We've done a solid job this year and I think in any team, company and business that you need to evolve.

"We're still a young team and less than 10 years old, but what we have achieved in that time is phenomenal.

"All the key players are still with us and the most visible change is our driver line-up.

"Everything else is business as normal."