writer: Nilanjana Chatterjee

How did Adrian start his dream career?

AdrianNewey has been around in the F1 paddock for 40 years. Revered as oneof the greatest race car designers in the sport, he has earned hisreputation, designing championship winning cars for Red Bull,McLaren-Mercedes, and Williams. Newey has got the chance to work withmany gifted drivers. He worked with drivers like Alain Prost andNigel Mansell from Williams, Kimi Raikkonen, and Mika Hakkinen fromMcLaren-Mercedes. He has compiled his 35 years of experience andknowledge into a book called “How to Build a Car: The Autobiographyof the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer”

Accordingto Newey, it is competitiveness that has driven him for the 40 yearsthat he has been associated with the sport. The competitive attitudebegan when was a kid. Physics was his favorite subject at school andremembering one of his physics classes, he said on Beyond the Gridpodcast, “when I was about 12 or so, we had a lesson in science onfriction, and it was actually a video that went through what frictiondoes, how it works, etc. At the end of it, the teacher said, ‘soeverybody, is friction a good thing?’ I was the only one who stuckup my hand and said, ‘well, without friction we'd all fall over. Iwouldn't be able to stand up because we’d just slide aroundeverywhere,’ and everybody laughed and the teacher laughed at me.”His classmates laughed at him and since then he has had this drive toprove himself.

TheRed Bull designer has had the ambition of becoming a designer inmotor racing since he was 10 years old. When he got his first job atFittipaldi, he went through months without knowing what was he doingor what was happening around him. He recalls in his interview withBeyond the Grid podcast host Tom Clarkson and said, “I wasfresh out of university, joined as junior aerodynamicist, whichturned out to be senior aerodynamicist. Teams in those days were sotiny that they had no aerodynamics team. But I got to the end of thefirst month, I had no idea what I was doing, and I got a salary forit. And I thought, ‘this is amazing. Here I am, in motor racing, acomplete numpty, but I'm getting paid. This is fabulous.’ Andreally, I can say pretty much, I mean there’s the odd day I haven'tenjoyed of course, but pretty much every day has been a bonus and atreat.”

AdrianNewey’s Red Bull Jump:

AdrianNewey joined Red Bull when the team was far from being contenders forthe F1 title. Back then Red Bull was one-season-old and had finishedseventh in 2006. Explaining to the Red Bull’s Talking BullPodcast, he said, “I felt I needed a new challenge is the veryshort answer, I also had a little bit of unfinished business becausewhen I first got into Formula 1, it was with a tiny team calledLeyton House. We were literally 50 people but we had some decentresults in 1988 and ‘90, we had a dry year in ‘89. The team Ithink had lots of promise but basically the owner got thrown inprison and the team fell apart.”

RedBull team principal Christian Horner had also dropped hints ofwanting to have Newey in the team. As he observed Horner, hediscovered that he made it a habit to walk to the Williams office.Newey asked David Coulthard about Red Bull, a driver he worked within Williams and McLaren, before he moved to the team. Coulthard said,“look, they’re great. They’re a great bunch.” Since then,Newey scoured a bit around the paddock before sealing the deal withDietrich Mateschitz.

Neweyon Aryton Senna’s tragedy:

Oneof the drivers who Newey didn’t get much time to work with wasAryton Senna. They never got a chance to talk to each other on thepaddock, until his first visit to the Williams factory. In theinterview with Beyond the Grid podcast, Newey said, “I methim occasionally, but never really talked to him, until he firstvisited the factory at the end of what must have been ‘93. I wasintroduced to him and then straightaway he was asking ‘can I seethe wind tunnel models?’ He considered Senna ridiculouslymeticulous.

Thepresent Red Bull chief technical officer regrets the way he designed1994 Williams race car. Reflecting on the 1994 season, he admittedthat switching back to passive suspension costed the car’sdrivability. He would have changed that on the car if he could.Explaining further on what went wrong with the car, Newey said, “It'smy fault. I completely messed up the aerodynamics of going back topassive suspension, and the much bigger ride height range that has tocope with. It was a very, very difficult car to drive, and thebumpier the circuit, the worse that became. Of course, Imola’squite a bumpy circuit. So, what he did with that car was quiteextraordinary and he could do that in qualifying. In Brazil, hemanaged to carry it but spun at the last corner near the end of therace, extracting that performance from it.”

NewRed Bull Dominance:

AdrianNewey is quite happy with Red Bull’s dominance in F1 for threeconsecutive years. He is fortunate that he didn’t take the contractwith Ferrari as he always believed that his loyalty always remainedwith Red Bull Racing. He also said in several interviews thatthree-time world champion Max Verstappen has done justice to thedesign of RB19. He has been indomitable and has utilized the designof the car to the fullest, capitalizing on every opportunitypresented to cruise to his third-championship title in 2023.

Talkingabout his journey of developing the championship winning car, Neweysaid, “We kept developing for longer than either of those teams, sotheoretically that puts us at a disadvantage. I think what we didmanage to do is get the architecture right. When RB18 first came outin Bahrain last year, the Ferrari was certainly as quick, if notquicker in the early season, but we managed to get the fundamentalsright and that gave us a good development platform.”

Asthe drivers prepare for 2024, thanks to Newey, Red Bull is a stepahead of the other teams as they have been working on RB20. And MaxVerstappen being “Super Max” has a good chance to win the 2024championship title with RB20. It would be a treat for Red Bull fansto see Adrian Newey’s RB20 and Max win another championship beforethe legend’s retirement.

What’snext in line for the legend?

Apartfrom working on RB20 for 2024, Adrian Newey is also working on twoother projects. In his interview with The Telegraph that henow spends just 50% of his time working on the Red Bull F1 car.

Heis now devoted to making Red Bull’s first-ever road car. DietrichMateschitz, the late Red Bull team owner, had also asked Newey todesign and build a submarine for a private island in Fiji calledLaucala Island.

Asthe masses believe that Adrian Newey is close to his retirement, hebelieves that age has nothing to do with being a part of motorsports.He gives the example of Fernando Alonso, who is still performingbetter than his contemporaries.

Ineach sport, be it on-field or on-track, there are people like AdrianNewey who bring new perspectives to aspects like racing car designswhich may or may not be fully emulated by other designers that comeafter him. He was, is and will always be a legend and a set examplefor future designers who might end up inching closer to building aFormula 1 car like he did.