Adrian Newey: 30 Years On The Top Step

Adrian Newey’s trip to the podium on Sunday in Mexico marked a very special occasion.

Milestones

Formula

are

not

always

obvious.

That

might

surprising,

given

the

obsession

within

the

sport

for

statistics,

but

the

nature

those

statistics

that

there’s

awful

lot

them,

particularly

for

teams

individuals

who

have

been

around

for

while.

This is our 17th season in F1 and while we’re a comparative spring chicken compared to some of the more venerable outfits on the grid, it’s still rare to have a weekend where there isn’t a new goal reached, or an historic anniversary fast approaching on which to reflect.

The big moment last weekend at the Mexico City Grand Prix – one of them, anyway – celebrated an event that occurred long before Red Bull Racing Honda existed. While Max lifted his 19th winners’ trophy, alongside him on the podium Adrian Newey collected the Constructors’ trophy. It was a fitting memento to mark the 30th anniversary of his first F1 victory.

In 2021, Adrian Newey cuts a distinctly old-school figure in the world of F1. His predilection for working with a drawing board is well-documented, but his methodology differs from the mainstream in rather more ways that simply preferring a mechanical pencil to a CAD-seat.

Putting Pen To Paper

Having learnt his trade when an entire design department could share a desk, he’s one of the last designers capable of looking at a car holistically: seeing the entire picture from nosecone to gearbox. In 21st Century design departments with hundreds of staff and a great many sub-divisions, there’s a tendency for everyone to be a specialist. The way in which all of the constituent parts mesh together is amazing to see, absolutely a triumph of engineering – but Adrian’s gaze tends to be a little more eclectic.

Quite how many F1 races his cars have won is something of a fluid concept, given the offset between a designer’s presence at a team and the influence of their body of work within it, but what we can say with some certainty is that Adrian’s unparalleled success as a designer of winning F1 cars is currently bookended by Max’s victory in the RB16B at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez last weekend, and Riccardo Patrese’s win for Williams at the same circuit all the way back in 1991.

Adrian spent a decade becoming an overnight success in F1. He went from university student to racing aerodynamicist in the time it took to return his library books, dabbled in race engineering, was diverted into an exceptionally successful career designing sports cars and IndyCars, before returning to F1 design, at first unsuccessfully with the FORCE team, and then establishing a reputation with a series of impressive F1 cars for March/Leyton House that punched well above its weight.

It was, however, at Williams where Adrian’s legend was secured. Working alongside Patrick Head, the Newey-designed Williams-Renaults won five Constructors’ titles and four Drivers’ Championships between 1992 and 1997, before Adrian moved to McLaren and added three more titles to his CV.

Establishing A Reputation In F1

Arriving at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in 1991, all that was in the future. The race in Mexico, however, was a sign of things to come. The Williams FW14 was quick but hadn’t delivered on its potential in the opening five races, recording three podium finishes and seven DNFs. At the previous round, in Montreal, Nigel Mansell had infamously ground to a halt on the final lap, while comfortably leading.

Everything clicked in Mexico, however, with Patrese and Mansell locking out the front row, and finishing in the same order, with Mansell also taking the fastest lap. The floodgates opened for Williams at that point, with the team winning six of the remaining ten races. They kept the Constructors’ Championship going until the final round but, after their early season privations, didn’t quite have enough to wrestle it away from the McLaren-Hondas… 1992’s B-spec, however, was the real game-changer.

While at Williams and McLaren, Adrian was a key component in restoring former champions to greatness: his challenge when he arrived at Red Bull Racing in 2006 was, conversely, rather different, taking on the project of building a title contender from scratch. 74 victories, and eight titles later, that project is still on-going. Adrian isn’t always at the track in the modern era: the relentless nature of the design process tends to preclude that sort of travel schedule, so he and technical director Pierre Waché tend to alternate.

Adrian On The Pit Wall

When Adrian is at the track, he continues to follow his usual routine of prowling the grid, clipboard in hand, studying the opposition, making the occasional sketch. The advent of new aerodynamic regulations for 2022, and the opportunity to start a design afresh seem tailor-made for his skill-set.

“I do enjoy regulation changes,” he says. “They allow me to sit back with a fresh sheet of paper and work out solutions from first principals. Stability makes F1 very iterative. Nobody comes up with new ideas, instead there are lots of little alterations on well-established themes. The more resources you have, the more iterations you can afford to do, and so winning becomes a question of who can assemble the most resources. It’s one way of working, I suppose, but it isn’t as stimulating as doing something new.”

Speaking of 2022 may, however, be premature: we haven’t quite finished with the current design. With four races left to run and both championships closer than they’ve been for a generation, there’s still plenty of desire to continue improving the RB16B. 30 years of success haven’t dimmed Adrian’s desire to win more. “The motivations are there because I enjoy my job,” he says. “The ambition when I joined Red Bull was initially to get the team to a point where it could take race wins; the dream was winning the Constructors’ Championship. Achieving that goal is very special – but it doesn’t change my day-to-day outlook. I enjoy working for Red Bull, it’s a good team to work for, we have a good atmosphere and I enjoy the design aspect of being involved. So, so long as I’m enjoying it, I’ll keep doing it.”

Adrian Enjoying The Celebrations