Adrian Newey: What makes a ‘visionary’ F1 designer so special?

Newey’s car designs have repeatedly set trends for others to follow, often accompanied by changes in regulations, as with Red Bull in Formula 1 from 2010 to 2013, and now again.

There is another major regulation change due for 2026 and Newey will arrive at Aston Martin in March next year, well in time to implement that design.

Last year Max Verstappen and Red Bull recorded the most dominant season in Formula 1 history, with 19 wins for Verstappen and 21 for the team from 22 Grands Prix.

This year has started with four out of five Verstappen wins. And while Red Bull no longer have the fastest car and are fighting a rearguard action against McLaren in both championships, their decline coincides with Newey’s withdrawal from F1 since early May, shortly after negotiating an early termination of his contract.

Of course, it could be a coincidence that Red Bull no longer understands what went wrong with their car since Newey left Formula 1. The team is now trying to downplay any direct connection.

But it is hard to imagine that the loss of an engineer of such skill and insight had no consequences.

When these rules were first introduced in 2022, it quickly became apparent that Newey and his team at Red Bull (to whom he is always keen to give credit) had discovered the secrets of the new rules.

These reintroduced the venturi underfloor to Formula 1: a curved shape of the underside of the car, similar to an inverted wing, which provides aerodynamic downforce.

Essentially, the closer these cars get to the ground, the more downforce they produce. But there is a limit: they are susceptible to something called porpoising, where the car gets too low because it is sucked into the track and the airflow stops, and the car starts to bounce at high speed.

Newey had already had experience with venturi floors in the early 1980s at the Fittipaldi Formula 1 team and had witnessed a number of failed experiments. He realised that the secret lay in the interaction between aerodynamics and suspension.

Part of the holistic solution to this was his decision to reverse the way the suspension had worked in recent years, specifically the way the suspension arm connects the wheel to the chassis.

The fashion had become push-rod at the front – the arm attaches to the top of the chassis and the bottom of the wheel hub – and pull-rod at the rear – the other way around. But for the best relationship between aerodynamics and kinematics, Newey turned it around for the 2022 Red Bull. Others have since followed suit.

Add to that a particularly advanced floor design that rival designers welcomed with open arms when they first saw it, and you have the makings of a period of dominance.

Newey said: “When we were trying to figure out not just where the loopholes were, but what was needed to meet the 2021 regulations, we wanted to get the fundamentals right and adapt the architecture to the aero regulations and the suspension.

“So we decided to go with pull-rod front, push-rod rear, which was the opposite of what most cars had in the previous rules. We felt that suited the aerodynamic requirements of the car best. So I think we got the basics of the car right when it came out early last year.”

Newey can recognize these important influencing factors because he has a unique arsenal of skills.

A genius designer and aerodynamic visionary, he is also grounded in the practicalities of what a car needs to be fast. His extreme competitiveness and lack of technical arrogance make for a relentless focus on performance.

For example, he understands that there is no point in chasing maximum downforce values ​​if they are only achieved under certain conditions and therefore make the car nervous and unpredictable to drive.

For Newey, it’s all about getting the maximum amount of performance for the maximum amount of time. It sounds simple, but it’s a formula that many F1 designers seem to forget with surprising frequency.