Red Bull’s chief aerodynamicist Adrian Newey is famous for playing an instrumental role in helping the team win multiple championships by designing some of their quickest cars. While most of the 64-year-old’s success has come at Red Bull, he also played a critical role in helping some of his former sides achieve success, as revealed by former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestly in his book, The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane.
Newey’s cars have won a total of 11 Constructors’ Championships. Five of them have come with Williams from 1992-1997 and one with McLaren in 1998. However, it was not until 2010 that he helped a team win another championship.
🗣️ | Adrian Newey on breaking McLaren’s consecutive win record
“To beat that McLaren record from 1988 is something I guess I certainly never thought we would do. It is a tribute to the whole team, to the hard work of all the guys, the reliability we’ve enjoyed so far this… pic.twitter.com/Kld36HzgYM
— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) July 25, 2023
On this occasion, it was Red Bull that won the title, a team that has won five championships with Newey by their side. Even though the 64-year-old was extremely successful even before joining Red Bull, he left McLaren as he was keen to seek a new challenge. While speaking on Red Bull’s Talking Bull podcast (as quoted by planetf1.com), Newey said, “I felt I needed a new challenge is the very short answer“.
Newey then went on to add that since teams like Williams and McLaren had already won championships before he joined them, he was keen to join a side and help them from the start. Now years after he left McLaren to join Red Bull, Newey has revealed how he played the FIA at their own game during his time at the Woking-based outfit.
Adrian Newey’s master plan helped protect McLaren’s design from being copied
In his book, The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane, former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestly has shed light on Adrian Newey’s master plan to help protect McLaren from rivals copying their design. Back in the day, the FIA had a rule as per which no team could put cover onto their wings to hide them.
As a result, Newey decided to build a wall by putting six-foot-high black screens in front of their garages. Priestly and the rest of the McLaren team termed the same as Adrian’s wall.
This move was a masterstroke as it helped the team protect rivals from copying the design of their car. Now, it seems that Newey has implemented another brilliant idea with Red Bull.
Red Bull have found a loophole in one of FIA’s rules
F1 TV’s Sam Collins has explained how the Red Bull team has found a loophole to find extra wind tunnel time. As quoted by gpblog.com, Collins explained that the Milton Keynes outfit have read the rule book extremely closely to get some extra wind tunnel time despite their penalty.
“When you develop new radiators, you develop new ducting underneath the bodywork, that does not come out of your wind tunnel or CFD testing allocation. You’ve got absolute freedom. You can spend as long as you like in the wind tunnel developing the radiators, developing the ducting to the radiators, as long as it’s related to cooling the power unit,” explained Collins.
The 64-year-old‘s clever thinking seems to have paid dividends yet again as Red Bull are currently the most dominant team on the current grid. The Milton Keynes outfit has won all 12 races of the 2023 season so far and are cruising towards their second consecutive Constructors’ Championship.
