Much of the credit for Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s massive dominance goes to the mighty RB19 and for this, only one man gets all the accolades and he is none other than Adrian Newey. The mastermind of the Austrian team has been unstoppable following the new regulations set in 2022 and a nightmare for rivals. As it is not possible to take Newey away from Red Bull, McLaren devised a way to tackle the brilliance of the British mastermind.
According to The Race, the Papayas set up three different engineers in three different roles inside the team to steer themselves to the top of Formula 1. It starts with Peter Prodromou who is in charge of the Technical Director and Aerodynamics role in the team. Followed by him, there is David Sanchez who also takes the Technical Director and Car Concept and Performance role.
Sanchez arrived from Ferrari with huge experiences and then there is Rob Marshall, who also arrived from a different team. Interestingly, Marshall arrived in the team from Red Bull and his experience would matter a lot for Zak Brown’s team. Marshall is also in charge of the Technical Director role with Engineering and Design as his subcategory.
On this, The Race reported, “The new arrivals began working for McLaren on January the second, and although that’s far too late for them to have had any major input into the Genesis of McLaren into the 2024 car, Stella [McLaren boss] says that they are already contributing devel ideas.”
Notably, two out of three engineers mentioned above have worked with Newey and arrived from Red Bull. Apart from Marshall, Prodromou also worked for Christian Horner’s team for nearly a decade. Together with three names, McLaren would look to bank on their wealth of experience to beat Red Bull in the coming years.
Adrian Newey, a living legend in F1 engineering
Adrian Newey is regarded as the most successful F1 engineer alive with numerous records and titles under his belt. The British engineer has a combined [Constructors’ and Drivers’] 25 titles on his name and a wealth of experience in this field.
He worked with world champion talents such as Ayrton Senna, Sebastian Vettel, and of course, the latest dominant driver Max Verstappen. The Red Bull mastermind also worked for McLaren and Williams and interestingly, took his turn in IndyCar as well.
Apart from his accolades, Newey is also regarded as an engineering god who is from the old F1 ground-effect era. He wrote a book named How to Build a Car by Adrian Newey and has been the leading man behind Aston Martin’s magnificent creation, the Valkyrie.
The 65-year-old’s vast experience put Horner’s team at a massive advantage after he became the only man to understand ground effect better than anyone else in the new regulations and saved the RB-18 from porpoising. While rivals such as Mercedes and Ferrari were suffering from this phenomenon, Newey’s creation was cruising on track.
After RB18 and RB19’s back-to-back dominance, it is now time for RB20 in 2024. It is believed that the upcoming Red Bull challenger will be stronger than its predecessor. Therefore, there are chances that Red Bull and Max Verstappen will hold the edge to supremacy till the 2025 F1 season.
Notably, rivals such as McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes began to catch Red Bull to some extent. However, the margin is still too low. But Zak Brown’s team that were the second fastest to some extent would look to a bank of the three engineers to give them an impetus in the upcoming seasons.
