Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey OBE

Considered by many to be the best car designer currently in F1 and in my opinion certainly rivalling some of the all time greats such as Colin Chapman.

Newey graduated from the University of Southhampton in 1980 with first class honours in Aeronautics and Astronautics. He went on to work for the Fittipaldi F1 team before joining March in 1981.

He was a successful designer from the word go. His first race car design was the March GTP sports car which won the IMSA GTP title two years running. In 1984 Newey design the March IndyCar his design proving highly competitive taking 7 wins including the coveted Indy 500. His IndyCar success continued in 85 with the March 85C taking the title.

Leaving Indycar to move back to Europe and F1, Newey Briefly worked for Force F1 team before rejoining the March team now as F1 technical director. Sadly his cars form declined after some initial promise in the late eighties until he was fired in 1990.

Patric Head wasted no time in snapping up Newey for the Williams Team in 1990 and by the end of 1991 the Williams FW14 was a front running car, on par with the championship winning Mclarens of that year.

In 1992 Newey took his first F1 constructors title with Williams and Mansell took the Drivers title. The winning form of his earlier career was back. 1993 the FW15c again dominated taking another constructors title. The start of 1994 the Williams was off form. Chasing active suspension technology caused the car to behave unpredictably, the drivers hated driving it even though it was fast. Then disaster struck. Sennas death at Imola and rumours of possible manslaughter charges started to cause cracks in Neweys relationship with the team management. Despite this Neweys wins kept coming taking the constructors yet again helped in part by a 2 race ban for Schumacher.

In 1995 Newey had been denied the technical directorship he wanted, this coupled with the loss of both titles to Benetton saw the relationship at Williams get frostier. By the time both titles were won in 1996 Newey had already signed for Mclaren. Frank Williams to this day regrets letting Newey go and with good reason, the Williams winning form was only able to continue for 1 year after Neweys legacy, they have never had such success since.

Unable to influence the Mclaren in 1997 his first car was to be design for 1998. Both titles followed. These would be his last for the next 11 years.

Leaving Mclaren at the end of 2005, Newey took on the challenge of joining a new team Red Bull Racing. With improving form in the constructors with a 7th, 5th, 7th and then in 2009 2nd. The Redbull in 2010 was the car to beat. Newey was back ,with the Redbulls taking both titles from his old team McLaren. in 2011 the RBR totally dominated taking Andrian Neweys Championship wins to an impressive 7 F1 titles and 10 total motors sport titles.

He is a man that has won 1 in every 3 constructors championships that he has designed a car for. The stats speak for themselves.
 
AN: Look, Christian, have you seen how much Ferrari are offering me?
CH: Yes, no, er maybe, Red Bull Ring. How much?
AN: Of course, if I were to leave F1, as I would like to, I would need to get some money from somewhere to finance it.
CH: Yes, no, er maybe. Supposing we were to give you lots of cash to not go to Ferrari but to do your own thing on sports cars, boats and vacuum cleaners?
AN: Well, I never thought of that, it would be nice wouldn't it?

The two shake hands and walk off into the sunset. It is noticeable that one of them is having trouble walking due to his feet erratically tapping.
 
Why the **** doesn't an F1 designer use dermal denticles in a cars design? If they were placed correctly such as the underside of the wings and the underside of the car and in the diffuser it would decrease drag and increase downforce it is fluid dynamics 101.

Edit.

It would also increase fuel efficiency by at least 10% thus saving weight..

Edit again.

This is just a theory that I have but all the evidence points to it being accurate...
 
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Mephistopheles maybe its cost related or hard to form in carbon fibre or a time issue or all 3. Or maybe its just a shit idea. The top aerodynamisits that work in F1 must have looked at this and ruled it out for what ever reason. I suspect it is the time (time is money) problem, the manufacturing hours to make a surface that looks like this must be huge and remember the wings change practically every race never mind the damaged ones.

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 09.18.43.png

Shark skin under electron microscope.
 
I seem to recall the red bull tea tray being secured by a very large number of overly large rivets, far more tban necessary.
 
Similarly about 15 years ago, one of the teams started experimenting with a coating for the top of the wings that when a current passed through it, it became ribletted, creating about 20 vortices on the rear wing, instead of just 2, and lots more downforce. When the current turned off, it went smooth again, giving less drag. It was, of course, illegal...
 
Just caught up with the first round of the BRDC F4 and was interested to note that Adrian's son 'Harri' is racing in it this year and actually looks pretty quick.

Should we expect to see Harri made a Red Bull junior in order to prompt his Dad to get more involved with the team again?
 
Very unserious. They have surfaced at the same time that Red Bull and Renault are negotiating with engine supply. Not coincidence.

Newry is still only on loan from McLaren anyway......well according to Ron.
 
Based on the step forward Honda made in Canada, now seems an unwise time to leave Red Bull (something for Danny Ric to note too)
 
I guess it could happen. Given he has offered the opinion previously that the Renault engine is the one thing holding his car back though I think I'll put it in the 'believe it when I see it' silly season pile.
 
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