Former Red Bull Chief Technology Officer Adrian Newey recently took a trip down memory lane and went through some of the cars he had designed over the years. The 66-year-old is well known not only for designing some of the most dominant cars in F1 history but also for his ingenious innovations.
Starting his career with March/Leyton House back in 1988, Newey showcased his ability as an aerodynamicist by producing one of the most aerodynamically efficient cars — the March 881. Although the team never won a race with this car, they delivered far better results than what most expected, with Ivan Capelli registering a best finish of second at the 1988 Portuguese GP.
Newey, knowing he had produced a strong car with the resources at his disposal, then took the learnings he got from March to his next team, Williams.
That is where he came up with one innovation — the idea of active suspension — that he feels would have made his life much easier today.
“Yes, very much,” was Newey’s response in an interview with AMuS when asked if he had been a fan of active suspension. “It is something we tried to work at Leyton House”.
For the uninitiated, an active suspension in F1 was quite close to how suspension systems work in sports cars and road cars. With hydraulic actuators helping the suspension rods to move as per the required ride height, such a system aided in optimizing downforce and drag levels besides helping tire management.
1/x Starting us off is the Williams-Renault FW18. One of the most successful Formula 1 cars of all time, designed by the legendary Adrian Newey. Its advanced active suspension system gave the car superior handling and grip, and it dominated the 1996 season, winning 12 out of 16 pic.twitter.com/4F8C2oRA8O
— Marlin Mack | Pareto Maxi (@nemoismyson) April 4, 2023
When asked if the active suspension was available today, would it make life much easier with the ground-effect cars, Newey without any hesitation replied, “For sure”.
Newey successfully used the active suspension to produce dominant championship-winning machinery for Williams in 1992 and 1993. The FIA banned the innovative solution ahead of the 1994 season, as it was very expensive to develop and sustain for smaller teams. Would it have made a difference in the current ground-effect era, as Newey suggested?
Active suspension would have helped teams tackle porpoising better
One of the prominent issues that came up with the most recent ground-effect cars was proposing — when the car bounces on a straight. Almost all teams struggled to tackle this issue, but Newey managed it best thanks to his extensive knowledge of ground-effect cars from the ’80s.
F1 journalist Michael Schmidt summed up perfectly why Newey was able to navigate this concern far better than his rivals. “He has the experience and he has the overall picture, more than anyone else. And particularly, you can see with these ground-effect cars because it was a technology coming back that we had already 45 years ago,” Schmidt explained.
The journalist then also added how Newey specifically tackled the issue of porpoising. “He was a guy who said, to the engineers at Red Bull, we have to get both the suspension and the aerodynamics right,” the German journalist said. Newey understood that just managing the suspension or the ride height was not enough to tackle this issue.
This is because while increasing the ride height would have reduced porpoising, it would have led to another problem, and that was reduced downforce. Newey understood this, and hence, decided to examine the suspension as well as the aero to find the right balance.
