Let’s get to know the British engineer who designs Max Verstappen’s unstoppable Red Bull better.
– Wherever he went, he sowed victories, created masterpieces, opened first-rate technical cycles: we are talking, with a dutiful note of merit, of the man who, starting from a blank sheet, still making use of a classic drafting machine, creates the super machines that are dominating this start of the world, that is Adrian Newey. Defined as the true purist in terms of aerodynamic design – his strong point since the beginning after graduating in aerospace engineering at the University of Southampton – is the technician considered by all to be the best interpreter of any regulatory change, the one capable of pulling the famous rabbit out of the hat, the trump card, that component who in fact places his projects as touchstones for any other opposing technician. It must certainly be acknowledged that the superiority of Max Verstappen is largely due to the technical foresight of the English designer, who, thanks to his ingenuity and design intelligence, was able to bring Red Bull to the absolute top, first of all, in the early 2010s , and then he was able to overturn the technical dominance of Mercedes, which seemed invincible to regulatory stability. Despite the ephemeral limitation due to overruns of the 2021 budget cap, the hours lost in the wind tunnel, which were intended to limit the development of the 2023 car, have not however blocked or limited Newey’s ability to improve the already super RB18, making a further evolutionary step with the new RB19;
– Coming from the British super school of F.1 designers, such as Colin Chapman, Gordon Murray and John Barnard above all, Newey began his adventure in the early 80s, with Fittipaldi, then contributing to the growth of one of the great car brands sports, the March, which made sparks in America, with the Indycars, colliding against the giants of the Yankees and sensationally winning in historic Indianapolis. Results that will gradually bring him back to Europe, highlighting Ivan Capelli’s career with the Japanese Leython House, which with its extreme and aerodynamically refined lines will act as carbon paper for the great and victorious future projects of the years to come. Then, with more money in his pocket and more buffed riders, first let Mansell and Prost win with Williams and then go to rival McLaren, putting Hakkinen on the shields and for years, making the Woking team Ferrari’s most consistent rival in the legendary Schumacherian bubble. Coming to the present day, he transforms a beverage factory, which entered F.1 as a simple marketing and image commitment, into the most overwhelming and terrifying technological fortress of the new turbo hybrid era, capable, often and willingly thanks to his projects, of attracting official car manufacturers as motor partners, from Renault first, to Honda then to Ford tomorrow. Also being able to dabble in drawing, in a break from F.1 in 2017 and in the construction of the catamaran for Ben Ainslie’s sailing America’s Cup, to arrive at the stupendous Aston Martin Valkyrie;
– A great intelligence, as mentioned, which has always anticipated and interpreted the various regulatory gaps, shedding light on the major and important technical evolutions of recent years, from the narrow and streamlined Leyton of the late 1980s to the active suspension of the unbeatable Williams Renault of early 1991, to the McLarens which all had futuristic construction concepts, such as the use of materials never used before (beryllium above all), to get to the Red Bulls, with exhausts that blow hot air on the extractors, effectively crushing the cars on the ground when the others sail meters above the ground, are just some of the pearls of his fantastic repertoire. But there are also nefarious and tragic failures, to tarnish a stellar curriculum. The extreme pursuit of performance, aerodynamic efficiency, to the detriment of mechanics and pilot, a secondary figure in the most total concept of maximum perfection. Because, as results in hand have always said and will say, the great victories, the great sporting hegemonies, have been written for centuries by the mechanical means and then, underlined by the pilots who have had and will have, the fortune or the destiny of being able to have them, available;
– Ayrton Senna’s Williams was his which, after modifying the seat of the steering column, led him to the tragic and fatal accident at Imola. A specific request from the Brazilian champion, who found it very difficult to drive a very narrow and cramped car, made following very strict aerodynamic rules to make up for the loss of electronic driving aids. A trial followed in Italy, where Newey then admitted responsibility for Senna’s death, however not feeling guilty for what happened. The conduct of the process manifested skepticism around the English technician, who, feeling like the protagonist of a media pillory, will find in it a negative factor upon his arrival at Ferrari, which has never made a secret of the various negotiations to bring him to Maranello, but which in fact, also for other reasons, not least the family one, she has never been able to bring them to fruition. A few years later, in 2003, the McLaren, willing to do whatever it takes to stop the Schumacher/Ferrari couple who have been setting record after record for some time, set up a stellar project, annihilating everyone on paper. After various tests on the runway (allowed at the time and which immediately allowed us to show strengths and weaknesses with annexed and connected times for the necessary modifications), we understand that the MP4-18 is an earth-to-earth rocket, but very fragile and unable to withstand a crash test, signal of a conceptually failed and flawed chassis, reducing it to a museum piece, thus opening the doors to another Red-Germanic laurel. A stratospheric hole in the water, considering the budget, times and expectations that remains one of the few, but significant sore points of a single curriculum;
– Unanimously recognized as the best designer, Newey was able to further interpret the umpteenth regulatory change in the best possible way, giving Verstappen the total weapon to win his first world championships in F.1 and in all likelihood, to apply as absolute contender this season. A masterpiece of technique that is also giving Perez the results he has been chasing for years and which now place him as the Dutchman’s most concrete rival in the 2023 championship. on the start of a world championship and going back in time, the best cars that have been able to impose such an important technical domain since the first grand prix – apart from Mercedes, the first turbo hybrid – were all conceived by the Stratford wizard. After him as DT, motorsport blazons such as Williams and McLaren were no longer able to find a technical framework, a top-level guide that would bring them back to winning a world championship again, effectively making them slip more and more into an abyss. technician with no apparent possibility of growth or improvement, except by buying components from other teams. All this increases the value and value that Newey has always been able to give to its projects, which then, as a consequence, give fortune and glory to those lucky enough to have the privilege of exploiting them. Often, little prestige and attributes are given to those who, behind the scenes, manage to shift the balance at stake, contributing to the creation of the mechanical vehicle, the dominant factor for winning in motorsport. Newey, is the most illuminating example of this.