Probably the single most talented designer F1 has ever seen, Adrian
Newey has risen from humble beginnings in Stratford-upon-Avon to become the worlds one of the most Famous designers, the 53-year-old Southampton University Graduate has an amazing 8 championship winning cars under his belt.
He is Currently the Chief Technical Officer at Red Bull Racing,(image on left courtesy of Zimbio.com) who are well on their way to winning their 3rd consecutive World Championship with Sebastian Vettel.
His first world title came back in 1990’s after he formed a formidable partnership at Williams with a certain Patrick Head. Nigel Mansell (whose own page is coming late next week) delivered the goods in 1992 followed by Alain Prost in 1993.
He moved to Mclaren in 1997 and had great success with Mika Hakkinen sweeping to 2 consecutive titles ( 1998 and 1999) Newey designed a championship winning car at the first time of asking for the Woking based team. It’s this ability and a talent to design cars that sail incredibly close to the wind in terms of legality( the Red Bull RB7 front wing springs to mind here) that make him one of the most revered technical men in Formula 1.
From 1992 to 2004 Newey, a man who starts every design on paper, engineered an incredible six World Championship winning cars under four different drivers. A feat only beaten by Ferrari’s Rory Byrne who designed the car for all 7 of Michael Schumacher’s Championships.
He then moved to Red Bull whose dominance has been complete for the last 3 years, down in no small notion to Newey’s daring designs.
Quite a short post and probably quite an unexpected one for a lot of people.
The only man ever to win Constructors Championships with 3 different team,s but Newey’s genius often gets overlooked. With Sebastian Vettel poised to become a treble world champion, I though it apt to take a look at the man who brought them to him.
If this interested you have a look at this gem of an article on formulaone.com, published just after Adrian received his OBE for services to Motersport in April.
Front of the Grid was created by Freelance Journalist Chris Allen. it aims to provide cutting edge news and opinion on the latest and greats issues in Formula 1 