Adrian Newey began to write his legend at Williams by winning 5 constructors’ championships and 4 drivers’ championships in 7 seasons between 1991 and 1997. He then signed for McLaren and designed the cars with which Hakkinen won his two world titles and put the duo in check. Schumacher-Ferrari in the early 2000s.
His “rivalry” with Alonso also began there as he designed the very fast McLaren MP4-20 with which Raikkonen stood up to the Asturian. The following year he signed for Red Bull and began an adventure that would end up placing him as the best designer of all time by achieving 7 drivers’ titles and 6 constructors’ titles, not counting those in 2024, which he has very well on his way.
Adrian Newey announced on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, that he was leaving Red Bull without giving details of what he has planned for the future. This news has caused even more of a stir than Ferrari’s signing of Lewis Hamilton.
Given his resume and the fact that he is free to work from 2025, all the big teams have been immediately interested with Ferrari and Aston Martin leading the pools to acquire the Briton’s services.
And no wonder, in 2026 a change in regulations is coming in which the order of the grid can be shuffled again.
Newey has experienced more regulation changes than anyone else in Formula 1 and rarely has he not found loopholes and gray areas to take advantage of to gain an advantage. Adrian designed the Williams F14 that would compete in the 1991 and 1992 championships.
In 1991, the front wing was narrowed by 10 cm. This greatly reduced its effect because, being narrower, it could not divert the air flow from the wheels which, when rotating at high speed, disorder it and generate drag (drag).
The regulations limited aerodynamics behind the front wheels. Those cars were very flat and lacked curves or aerodynamic fins to direct the air flow to the engineer’s liking. The regulations also stipulated the minimum height of the body, including the front spoiler.
However, Newey saw a loophole that gave him freedom to design between the center part and the trailing edge of the wheel, always above the minimum height. Thus, he took advantage of the narrowness of the new front wings to lengthen the endplate (vertical plate mounted on each end of the wings) rearwards and make it serve as a barrier against the turbulent air that the wheel pushes into the interior of the car and expels it towards the abroad. McLaren and Ferrari would soon protest and try to show that it was an illegal solution.
However, Newey’s ruse was not banned until 1993, but by then, everyone had copied it. The Williams F14 was hampered by reliability problems in 1991 and despite achieving 7 victories, they were surpassed by the McLarens.
But the 1992 B version turned out to be one of the most dominant cars in history: Niguel Mansell won 9 races out of 16 and when he didn’t win he was second or retired. Ricardo Patrese achieved one more victory for the team. They finished first and second and Mansell doubled the third place finisher, a very young Michael Schumacher, in points.
The regulations regarding aerodynamics have remained stable since 1998, so after 7 years of continuity, it was more difficult to innovate. In 2005, this stability was slightly broken, forcing the front wing to be placed 50 mm higher. It may seem like a small change, but the flow of air coming out of the spoiler must go through the rest of the car, so it completely affects the aerodynamics of the entire car.
Being in a higher position, the whirlwind of air coming from the endplate collided with the front suspension. Newey knew that the front wing design was good and he did not want to modify it so he decided to raise the lower triangle also by 50 mm to let the air flow underneath as he had done before the rule change.
This simple change has many other consequences at a mechanical level that had to be resolved, but it is clear that they knew how to do it since, under the command of Kimi Raikkonen, the MP4 20 was one of the fastest single-seaters in history, although the reliability and Montoya’s injury prevented him from winning the drivers’ and constructors’ championships.
After a great last year at McLaren and amid rumors of his retirement, Newey signed for Red Bull in a surprising move. There he participated in the design of the 2007 and 2008 cars, without much success, although he did improve the results of 2006.
In 2009, his time came. The aerodynamic regulations that had remained stable since 1998 came to an end and all aerodynamic tricks were prohibited, a new era began. That year Red Bull took a huge leap in quality and soon began to attract attention.
It was only surpassed by the surprising Brawn GP, ??which had found a loophole in the regulations: the double diffuser. Single-seaters generate more downforce the greater the rear height compared to the front height. This is known as rake.
However, the FIA ??establishes a maximum diffuser height (which translates into maximum rear height). Brawn introduced a hole in the floor that doubled the downforce generated and mitigated the maximum height restriction. Adrian Newey and Red Bull were the most effective at copying this trick and managed to be the fastest during the second half of the season.
The continuous regulations of 2010 allowed them to continue taking advantage of their efficient double diffuser until it was banned in 2011. Thus the blown diffuser was reborn. I say “reborn” because it was a very common solution in the 80s and 90s, so Newey knew how to make it work. The rear height was again a limiting factor and had to be placed at the maximum stipulated to generate the maximum load.
However, losses were generated near the rear wheels in contact with the ground. It was necessary to direct the air flow towards the ground to reduce the low pressure currents generated in the wheels. The exhaust gases exit at very high pressure and enter turbulent regime very easily.
Newey wanted to use that high pressure to direct flow and aimed the exhaust toward the lower inside of the rear wheels. Thus he managed to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the car, solving a problem that was going to torment the entire grid.
Red Bull were not the only ones to use the blown diffuser from the get-go, but their design proved to be the most effective and all the other teams took the same solution.
Each new Formula 1 regulation offers countless opportunities for the most creative engineers. A regulation is hundreds and hundreds of pages and I have summarized three examples that refer to a handful of articles. The number of loopholes that a genius like Adrian Newey can find is unimaginable.
Let’s not fool ourselves, all the engineers working in Formula 1 are very good and even more so if they are in positions like Newey’s, regardless of the team. Faced with a new regulation, many engineers will have good ideas to solve the new problems that arise.
However, in Formula 1, a good idea is not enough; To win you need the best solutions and Newey has proven for more than 30 years that he always finds the best solutions and, if he doesn’t find them himself, he perfects them.
