British engineering legend Adrian Newey has designed some of the most successful F1 ® cars ever , winning 25 FIA Formula 1 ® Drivers ’ and Constructors ’ Championships in a 45-year career that has defined era upon era of F1 ® racing
Words : Will Gray
WORLD CHAMPION
Designer
In a sport where excellence in engineering is as important as driving talent , if not more , Newey ’ s dedication to detail and eye for innovation make him stand out from the crowd . Throughout his career , his incredible ability to read the regulations and spot exactly how and where to push the boundaries has enabled him to create title-winning cars again and again .
From his first super-skinny Leyton House March to the modern Red Bull marvel Max Verstappen is racing to victory on a very regular basis in 2024 , Newey has pioneered a minimalistic , no-compromise , aerodynamics-first approach . But this was not honed in F1 : its roots go right back to the late 1970s , when he was an Aeronautics and Astronautics student at university .
Newey was already a step above his peers back then . Head to the Southampton University archives now , and his thesis is still easy to spot – because it is at least twice as thick as anything else on the shelf . In it , he went well beyond the norm , spending hours in the wind tunnel designing a ground-effect sports car that pushed the limits of what had gone before .
However , it almost did not happen that way . ‘ My first year was difficult because I struggled with maths ,’ he once recalled . ‘ Around Christmas , I had contemplated quitting but a lecturer in my department , Ken Bergin , encouraged me to stay . He was an inspiration throughout my degree and as I progressed through the course , I enjoyed it more and more .
‘ In the third year , the University only allowed one motororiented project at the time . Ken made sure I got that project , which really helped to cement my desire to work in motor sports .’ The course of F1 ® history could have been very different were it not for that encouragement , but by the end of his degree , the roots of success were already growing .
45