It comes amid the ongoing Horner scandal which has overshadowed the start of the 2024 season and Red Bull’s success on track.

Horner was accused of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ by a female employee of Red Bull, with texts and images supposedly related to the investigation subsequently leaked.

The 50-year-old was cleared after an investigation, though the complainant looks set to appeal the decision, which could put further pressure on Horner, the husband of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.

Adding fuel to the fire, Max Verstappen’s father Jos called for Horner to be sacked, with an all out civil war between Red Bull’s key players on the horizon, where something – or someone – will surely have to give.

That someone could well be Newey, the man largely credited with building Red Bull’s unstoppable cars over the past few seasons.

The 65-year-old is an F1 legend, with cars that he’s designed winning 13 drivers’ titles and 12 constructors’ titles since 1992, including last year’s RB19 which is the most dominant car in the sport’s history having won 21 of 22 races.

Newey has worked for Red Bull since 2006, but German newspaper Auto Motor und Sport, via PaddockNews24, claim that he has grown ‘unhappy’ with the Horner saga, leading to friction with the team principal.

It is claimed that Horner wants to move Newey out of the F1 team into Red Bull’s RB17 hypercar project in order to free up space on the wage bill amid concerns they could breach the budget cap again.

The salaries of the drivers and the three highest-paid members of staff (which includes Newey) don’t count toward the £106million cap but axing him would allow someone else to become exempt and free up more funds.

This all comes at a time when Newey and other key engineers at Red Bull are being targeted by Ferrari who are looking to capitalise on the debacle at the reigning champions.

Having hired the most successful driver of all-time in Lewis Hamilton, the Scuderia are looking to assemble the best of the best to get back to the top and have long harbored ambitions of hiring Newey.

Moreover, only last year the engineer expressed some ’emotional’ regret that he had never worked for Ferrari or with Hamilton, seemingly laying the foundation for a future move.

‘My discussions in 2014 with Ferrari were purely out of frustration,’ Newey said back in September.

‘Working with Fernando [Alonso] and Lewis would have been fabulous. But it never happened. It’s just circumstance sometimes, that’s the way it is.’

The whole debacle is set to continue as F1 heads down under for the Australian Grand Prix on 24th March.