Adrian Newey Admits to Sometimes Copying Rival Teams’ Designs

Given how much he has achieved in his career spanning more than four decades, Adrian Newey is a subject of fascination for many. Equally fascinating, if not more, is his mysterious yet famous red notebook. The aero genius is often seen carrying it around while walking down the grid. Occasionally, he would give a rival team’s car a hard long look and scribble something in the notebook.

Newey has now disclosed the contents of the mysterious notebook. He admits that he does take notes about the rival teams’ cars or certain parts that catch his attention. Once at the factory, he would discuss with his colleagues whether the concept was good enough to put on their car. If not, he would ponder over what the rival team aimed to achieve with it.

“It’s normally to try to look at what other people are up to. And occasionally, I will then take that back to the guys at the factory and say, ‘Look, notice this could be worth copying. Let’s try it on our car, see if we can see what they’re at,'” Newey told AMuS.

“Other times, I’m using it more to, ‘Okay, well, they’ve gone down this direction. What were they trying to achieve?’ And then it’s the sort of target of what somebody might be trying to achieve rather than the specific detail of how they’ve achieved it, which interests me,” he added.

It’s @redbullracing Talking Bull time!!
My chat with the legendary Adrian Newey is live. What a fascinating guy. Protect this notebook with your life!
You can listen in all the normal podcast places or watch the whole ep here – https://t.co/5DbWnRzGkA pic.twitter.com/W2BPQ0uw8a

— Nicola Hume (@Nicola_Hume) May 23, 2023

The notebook adds to Newey’s old-school charm. In times when one would rather whip out their phone for note-taking, the veteran engineer continues to trust his pen and paper. That trait is not limited to his grid walks or car designing.

Newey wakes up in the night to scribble innovative ideas

Despite inherently being an engineer, Newey’s inspirations resemble those of an artist. He has admitted to randomly being fascinated by the shape of a bird and incorporating it in a race car to optimize aerodynamics. These random inspirations, however, don’t always cross his mind in the wake-state.

“I always used to get up and scribble it down. And then sometimes I’d get up in the morning and think, wow, a load of rubbish. That wasn’t worth getting up and spoiling my night’s sleep for,” the 26-time title-winner admitted.

This regret led him to realize that if the idea was good enough, he’d remember it in the morning. Since then, Newey has cut down on his obsession with scribbling in the notebook in the middle of the night. However, he admits to getting restless and ruining his sleep anyway. Ultimately, the thought lands in the notebook.