Some say he can see air move. Others call him Formula One’s most gifted designer ever and that his contributions are worth a second a lap. All we know is he’s Adrian Newey – and that he’s an even more important asset to Red Bull than Max Verstappen Braam Peens shares why the man from Colchester will go down as one of the greats! 
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At the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing’s record streak of fifteen consecutive F1 victories finally came to a halt. Not that it mattered, because by then they’d also breached the 100 mark for the total number of wins, and are now rapidly closing in on the next-placed Williams team – which has recorded 112 triumphs since 1975.
Not bad for an energy drinks outfit that only started in 2005 and were initially derided in the paddock for partying harder for pursuing pole positions. Five years later Sebastian Vettel swept to a quadruplet of successive driver’s crowns for the Austro-British squad, which was only interrupted by the advent of the turbo hybrid era in 2014. After seven years of Mercedes dominance that followed, more title-bearing silverware found their way to crush the corporate trophy cabinet by the hands of Max Verstappen in 2021, 2022 and most ruthlessly in 2023.
Today, F1’s lardy cars (798 kg) appear almost unrecognisable next to their infinitely nimbler (605 kg) early-2000s forebears; the former having since endured revolutions in propulsion diversity, and in 2022 – a shift in focus from surface to underbody aerodynamics.
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The category’s engine freeze, cost cap, in-season testing ban and millimetre-short leash on competitive innovations have put a premium on understanding the sport’s technical regulations to maximise performance. Both in the Vettel and Verstappen dynasties, from the then-exhaust blown diffuser to today’s underfloor ground effect voodoo, Red Bull’s grasp of the technical intricacies within (or sometimes brushing the boundaries of) each ruleset resulted in pulverising performances that left the competition scratching their heads.
These phenomena were only made possible owing to the sage insights of the team’s chief technical officer, Adrian Newey, whose 0.7 mm HB pencil has spawned more than 200 grand prix wins, 12 constructor’s and 13 driver’s championships for three different teams – to create F1’s most coveted CV.
The fifth element
With F1’s engine development now locked in until 2026 and thereby necessitating teams’ performance-finding focus to shift back to aerodynamics, the ability to visualise the optimisation of airflow around a car has become a more sought-after talent than the skill to proficiently pilot the end product itself. When Sergio Pérez’s car was craned off the circuit following crashes at Monaco in 2022 and 2023, the view of the underside of respectively his RB18 and RB19 was met with shock as rivals witnessed a configuration entirely alien to anything they’d ever observed before.
Ground effect downforce is generated by the variation in pressure between the upper bodywork and the underfloor (high pressure above and low pressure underneath), sucking the car towards the track. To this end, a low floor and gradually increasing rake assist in the speeding up of air towards the diffuser to create undercar downforce.
The challenge is that as the downforce increases, the bottom of the car draws closer towards the ground until it touches the surface. The airflow then stalls before re-attaching to the underbody as the latter rises owing to the absent downforce. As a stopgap, harder springs are typically fitted to limit vertical travel, but these introduce mechanical bouncing instead of the aforementioned aerodynamic porpoising – as notably Mercedes discovered in 2022. Alternately, a downforce-robbing higher-than-ideal ride height is settled upon, which is equally undesirable.
What took the rest of the F1 grid months of pain to discover and find workarounds for throughout 2022, had already been ticked off after the RB18’s then-first preseason test in Bahrain; and carried over into 2023’s RB19.
This baked-in advantage stemmed from Newey’s assertion that today’s underfloor regimen mandates aerodynamics unable to operate in isolation from the chassis. The Red Bull’s ground effect is conjured from the domed upper sections of the venturi tunnels that narrow towards the rear; complete with profile changes and vortex generators inserted to positively disrupt the air at key points. Unlike its competitors, the RB18 and RB19’s tunnel height is the determinant of underbody aero performance – not the car’s static ride height; which itself is set higher to not only avoid scuffing the track surface, but also to facilitate the use of softer, tyre- and grip-friendly, long-travel suspension that features extreme anti-squat and anti-dive properties. The latter keeps the aerodynamic platform stable, as well as allowing the car to ride lower without bouncing at high speeds, and for more gratutious use of kerbs to enable shorter, tenth-saving track distances covered between corners.
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At the rear, the profile angle of the lower wing combines with the ramp-up of the diffuser’s outer rearward protrusion to stall the underbody when the drag reduction system is activated, thereby enabling a higher top speed.
The result has been a phenomentally aerodynamically efficient car whose designer recognised sufficiently early that the key to acing F1’s next-gen underfloor aerodynamics did not lie in mastering the underfloor, but in managing the car’s ride height.
Such genius underlines Newey’s holistic approach to multiplying performance. As the antithesis of Mercedes’ direction that has solely focused on their car’s floor, Newey has sought to identify several interrelated areas of development and combined them to cumulatively form a scythingly efficient weapon that, by mid-2023 was still on average three-quarters of a second faster per lap than its competitors.
Adrian Newey – Lord of the Rings
Newey’s conceptions have won every category he’s ever been involved in. After graduating in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1980, four years later his first project in IMSA racing netted two crowns. Next to take titles were his March IndyCars in 1985 and 1986, before he joined the tiny F1 Leyton House effort in 1987 as chief designer.
Success was hardly expected; and although despite 1988’s March 881 retiring winless, it remains one of Adrian’s all-time favourite creations. Underpowered against the ruling McLaren-Honda turbos of that year (whose 11-win record run was smashed by the RB19 in 2023), against all odds the wind-cheating welterweight scored a second a place at Estoril and even briefly led at Suzuka. Its compact and integrated design would set the standard for all future F1 car designs.
When Leyton House’s budget blew, in 1990 Newey departed for Williams-Renault, where alongside technical director Patrick Head he birthed the championship-winning 1992 FW14, 1993’s FW15C, 1996’s FW18 and the FW19 in 1997. Despite now being the most-wanted designer in F1, Newey was given the cold shoulder when requesting a greater shareholding in the team, and moved to McLaren for the 1998 season. Tellingly, Williams has never since clinched a title – and subsequently lamented losing what was not recognised at the time as their most prized asset.
Williams’ loss was McLaren’s gain as Newey’s 1998 MP4/13 and 1999 MP4/14 handiwork rounded out the 20th century as champions. Meanwhile, Ford had acquired Jaguar (and its F1 team) and in 2001 courted Newey through his old friend Bobby Rahal from his IndyCar days. The move was fruitless but succeded at exposing the cracks between Newey and McLaren’s dictator, Ron Dennis. What last iota of the trust that existed between the two had now completely evaporated, re-igniting Newey’s yearning for greener pastures.
As the penny-pinching Ford flogged its Jaguar F1 team to Red Bull in 2004, a fresh-faced Christian Horner was on the hunt for a new designer. David Coulthard, Red Bull’s then-driver who worked alongside Adrian at Williams and McLaren previously, advised an interested Horner that to get somewhere in F1, a heavyweight like Newey was an essential appointment.
Except that Newey, in recognising his value (and, probably, the size of Red Bull company co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz’s asset portfolio) – wouldn’t come cheap: an increase to the £10-million per year he was demanding that McLaren refused to concede to. The eight-digit fee was claimed by Horner to be “70 per cent higher than I’d warned Dietrich we might have to pay,” but a phone call by the Red Bull owner to fellow Austrian Gerhard Berger mitigated the shock to effectively seal the deal, when the ex-McLaren driver told Mateschitz “it depends on the value you put on a second per lap.”
Horner was ecstatic at the prospect of his hire. “Given the choice of Adrian Newey or Michael Schumacher, I’d go for Adrian every time.”
Liberated from the corporate shackles that depressed him at McLaren, Newey’s enthusiasm was mutual. Red Bull was a throwback to his Leyton House days that he joined as a maverick startup, sporting a clean slate and a flat management structure, only this time – with wallet-wilting resources and freedom to explore other projects, such as yacht design for the America’s Cup and the Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar.
The golden spell of 2010-2013 that yielded Vettel’s four back-to-back titles preceded trouble in paradise. In 2014, Newey and other senior Red Bull figures cornered Renault’s CEO at the time, the subsequently-disgraced Carlos Ghosn. The goal? To wrestle more resources into the F1’s team’s engine programme, which was humiliated by the Mercedes whitewash of the hybrid V6’s debut season. “I have no interest in Formula 1,” Ghosn snarled. “I am only in it because my marketing people say I should be.”
Disillusioned at such hopeless prospects (and Vettel triggering his contract’s get-out clause), Newey pondered leaving Red Bull, momentarily entertaining Ferrari’s reported £20-million courtship, which was rebuffed and presumably met by Mateschitz once again. Given language difficulties and the political morass that ceaselessly renders the Italian squad impotent, it’s unlikely that the Englishman would have enjoyed an extended stay.
Nonetheless, he confessed on F1’s official podcast in 2023 that he regrets never collaborating with the Scuderia; as well as Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, on his career record. Although the names of Mansell, Hill, Villeneuve, Häkkinen, Vettel and Verstappen can hardly be deemed poor substitutes.
Not even his heroes – Patrick Head and Gordon Murray – shared such a skilful appreciation or mercurial aptitude for bending air. Perhaps that’s because Adrian Newey is blessed with the power to do so much more: making history. Now that’s true talent.
