Guenther Steiner has warned Williams Formula 1 boss James Vowles he could end up looking “stupid” regarding his attempts to sign Adrian Newey and Carlos Sainz.
Red Bull announced last month that design legend Newey will vacate his long-serving position next March, prompting speculation that he could be heading to Ferrari.
However, Vowles revealed in Miami that he had held talks with Newey over a potential return to Williams, whom he experienced title success with from 1991 to 1996.
Meanwhile, Vowles is also weighing up the candidates to partner Alex Albon at the side in 2025 and it emerged in Monaco that discussions are happening with Sainz.
The Spaniard will lose his current Ferrari seat to Lewis Hamilton next season and it’s understood that he has a proposal on the table from the impending Audi venture.
But Steiner has questioned Vowles’ willingness to go public about those negotiations, claiming that his counterparts at Ferrari and Mercedes would be more reserved.
“A few weeks ago, Adrian Newey was going there. I don’t hear anything about that one anymore,” Steiner told the Red Flags podcast.
“I don’t think they’re rumours. James said them openly. It’s not a rumour.
“If the team principal says that he is speaking with Adrian, obviously the press picks it up. That is what the press are there for. If somebody says [something], you need to [report it].
“Obviously not knowing if it is serious or not, I would say it’s a little bit of wishful thinking.
“Obviously he’s going to speak to people – that is what you [should] be doing, you should be speaking – but before you say [it] you need to be a little more certain that they will happen.
“If Toto [Wolff] or Fred [Vasseur] said who they speak to all day long, we would be like: ‘Wow, next year Ferrari will need a new building to fit in all the people they spoke with.’
“It’s a little bit of namedropping as well: ‘We are getting Adrian Newey here.’
“Does Adrian really want to go to Williams? I don’t know. Maybe he wants to, but Adrian has got a lot of opportunities out there. He can pick where he can go.
“I don’t know why he would pick Williams, but maybe he knows. Maybe they offer him something somebody else cannot offer him, maybe he gets half of the team [to own].”
The ex-Haas Team Principal has also cautioned that Newey and Sainz’s potential arrival would not guarantee the Grove-based squad F1 success over the short term.
He added: “If you just catch up after a while when you’ve had no success, [what is there to gain when you say] this is what you wanted to do and you didn’t achieve it?
“The results are the only thing that counts. But it’s not only in Formula 1, it’s in general, it’s in life. You can talk a lot of stuff and never do something.
“Maybe James will get it all and he’s World Champion next year, which I’m fine with. It’d make an interesting Formula 1.
“It’s difficult to predict that one and if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t be putting my money on that.
“You always speak with people. As a team principal, you speak with a lot of people but with some it’s just an exchange like: ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’
“It doesn’t mean that Carlos Sainz went to them begging for a cockpit. It’s right for James to ask Carlos: ‘Are you interested in coming to Williams? Let’s have a talk about it.’
“Fred and Toto speak with everybody. They talk with sponsors, they talk with these great companies.
“But you don’t want to make that public because, if it doesn’t happen, you look pretty stupid.
“Maybe we will be surprised and Carlos and Adrian sign in the next few weeks. I’d be fine with that.”
