With 25 championships to his name, Adrian Newey is certainly one of the greatest designers in F1. However, the Red Bull genius thinks that another individual has been the most practical designer in the sport. Former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan revealed this anecdote of Newey considering Gary Anderson as the most practical on the Formula for Success podcast.
Jordan stated that Newey discussed this on a recent bike ride. The Irishman quoted Newey, “You know something I thought about is the most practical race engineer, designer, that I have ever seen and I love his work what he has done, [he] worked for you Eddie.”
Gary Anderson, emekli F1 araç tasarımcısı.
️: “2022 Araçlarındaki en iyi şasi – aerodinami ikilisine sahip takım bence Red Bull olacak.” pic.twitter.com/W4sg1CHuTn
— Krampon F1 (@F1Krampon) January 9, 2022
Jordan instantly guessed, “Oh it has to be Gary Anderson”. He elaborated on Anderson’s work ethic and one peculiarity that made him stand out from the crowd for Newey. Jordan highlighted that Anderson never assigned any task to another individual that he couldn’t do himself.
Anderson worked with different teams like Brabham, McLaren, and Tyrrell in different capacities — be it as a mechanic, a race engineer, and later a chief engineer in the initial two decades of his career. It was later in 1990-91 when Jordan hired him for their team to design cars.
Until 1998, Anderson designed cars that helped Jordan consistently fight for points finishes, and podiums, but with limited success. It was his return in 2002-03 when the EJ13, designed by him, won the 2003 Brazilian GP.
However, post that, Anderson entered the world of broadcasting, working with RTE, ESPN, and BBC as well. For the past two decades, the technical genius has worked intensively with media outlets and broadcasters as a technical analyst and pundit for F1. However, his time at Jordan as a car designer remains one of his biggest career highlights.
Anderson highlights how different he was from the Jordan team
Anderson left the Jordan team in 1998 to go and work at teams like Stewart and Jaguar. He also had a brief stint in America, working for Reynard in the Champ Car series (CART).
Despite working with Jordan for nearly a decade, Anderson felt that they were always different individuals. The Race F1 expert said, “We were like two peas out of different pods. We’ve always had a bit of different opinion.”
Whether this hints at any past disagreements between him and Eddie Jordan’s team remains unknown. However, several years later, Eddie has nothing but praise for Anderson.
