“I just try and fill in the cracks if I see them” – Adrian Newey returned to the paddock after a cycling accident and since then Red Bull have won back-to-back races in the Americas.
The Chief Technology Officer of Red Bull Racing, Adrian Newey, is back, and how! For those unaware, he was injured in an accident in Croatia, which meant he was physically absent from the racing operations.
He made a full recovery and returned recently, guiding Red Bull to victories and double-podiums in Austin and Mexico. But, he doesn’t want to take any credit for it, putting it down to a full team job.
“It’s coincidence. I enjoy being here. I’m enjoying being back. [I] missed it. Hopefully, I bring something, but it’s a great team. So I just try and fill in the cracks if I see them.”
Red Bull battling rear-wing problems
Red Bull’s journey in the Americas hasn’t been smooth sailing so far, with problems with the rear-wing, especially. The team led by Newey has handled it well though, as they look to win in Brazil this weekend and inch towards the double title over Mercedes.
“We had a problem in Texas, which was completely unrelated to the problem we had here [Mexico].
“It was the same wing we would normally run in Monaco and Hungary, but because of the low air density, everybody runs maximum downforce here.
“The fact that you get to terminal velocity means it’s actually carrying more load than it would do in Hungary, and that seemed to be what was catching us out. Trying to understand that and [make] hasty modifications between FP3 and qualifying, happily, seemed to do the trick.
“There’s so many little bits at the track, the decisions on the details of the set-up, how we use the tyres.
“In Austin, we had some reliability concerns over the front wing grounding, here [in Mexico City] we had a drama with the rear wing going into qualifying post-FP3.
“Race cars aren’t 100 percent reliable, they keep throwing things at you.”
