Just a handful of people around the world have as much experience as Adrian Newey regarding how to build an F1 car. The Briton had been designing F1 cars for well over three decades now. After Newey took Niki Lauda’s championship-winning 312 T2 up the hill at Goodwood, he reveals how the cars from the 70s were different from today’s F1 cars.
“It must’ve been a fascinating era to work in because the rule book was about two pages. But the budgets were relatively small. We did not have the research tools”, said Newey in Sky Sports F1’s video as he stated how car designing had its own challenges in the 70s. The Red Bull mastermind touched upon how the shape of the cars changed over the decades.
Adrian Newey might be the expert of design, but he’s clearly also an expert of Niki Lauda’s Ferrari 312T2. He’s absolutely flying up that Hill! #FOS pic.twitter.com/6Kx8XKSz4r
— Goodwood Road & Racing (@GoodwoodRRC) July 13, 2024
Newey added how wind tunnels were just coming around the time when the 312 T2 that he was driving was designed. He explained how cars were more reliant on testing and development compared to the wind tunnel and computer simulations from today.
The British aerodynamicist started his career in the late 80s and has designed cars of three different eras. From some cars of the venturi effect era in the late 80s to working with blown diffusers (2000s) and the turbo hybrid engine cars (2010s), Newey has seen it all and developed cars for all these regulations.
However, as the 2026 regulations have been announced, Newey is a little skeptical of them.
Newey’s take on the 2026 F1 regulations
The 2026 regulations were formally announced after Newey confirmed his Red Bull exit. Despite not having joined a team yet for 2025 and beyond, Newey feels strongly about the new regulations. The Briton suggested that he felt quite depressed by the new set of rules as they looked prescriptive.
According to Racing News 365, Newey said, “It’s the first time I can remember where both the chassis regulations and the power unit regulations are changed at the same time – it’s a massive change. The problem at the moment is trying to get the chassis regulations to work well with, let’s say, a rather unusual power unit regulation.”
Newey is yet to confirm his team for 2025 and beyond and reportedly a decision will come by the end of September. McLaren and Aston Martin are believed to be the two contenders for signing the aerodynamic mastermind after speculations around Newey wanting to go Ferrari have died down.
