Can Adrian Newey really see air?
Adrian Newey is the most decorated individual in F1 history
Adrian Newey occupies an interesting position in the pantheon of F1’s great pioneers.
As the most successful designer in F1 history, naturally he is an inspiration to many a budding engineer.
The genius of Adrian Newey
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Yet his way of working – his weaponry of choice famously consists of a drawing board and a pencil – is almost painfully old-fashioned.
The technical directors of tomorrow will no doubt claim to have been heavily influenced by Newey, the cars he has designed and his success.
Trained in the language of CFD (computational fluid dynamics), however, how many of today’s cohort of physics and aerodynamics graduates will truly be able to follow Newey’s blueprint to the letter?
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Indeed, how many of the current F1 technical directors could do what Newey does? And in the way he does it? There is a good reason why his signature is as coveted as those of the sport’s leading drivers.
It strays into the territory of cliché to think of figures of Newey’s stature as the last of a dying breed, yet his unique methodology in the modern paddock ensures the boot fits.
His gifts are not transplantable. They cannot be taught or learned, but are his and his alone.
It was Christian Horner, the now former Red Bull team principal, who some years ago described Newey as the man who can see air.
Appearing on the High Performance podcast in September 2024, Newey laughed off the very notion.
“No, of course I can’t see air!” he said.
“It’s a nice romantic image but, no, unfortunately I can’t.
“I like to try to visualise and understand and that perhaps comes from being of that older generation where, before CFD and CAD [computer-aided design] kicked in, everything was manual.
“You worked on a drawing board, you worked in the wind tunnel.
“Those were your tools, so you had to try to understand and to visualise. That’s what I still try to do.
“I’m lucky enough to have come from genetically a good artistic background on both sides of the family, so I think that helps.
“After all, engineering – particularly design engineering, performance engineering – is a combination of science and art in many ways.
“As an engineer, you should accept that there are some things you don’t understand and science says it shouldn’t be, but it is.
“Don’t ignore the actual facts.”
There is a wider lesson, one of self-improvement, to be studied here.
With no computer simulations to work with as an engineer born in the late 1950s, Newey had no option but to work on harnessing his own skills and developing the nose for it.
By placing such an emphasis on imagination and visualisation, with his mind’s eye alone he plugged the holes in an engineer’s expertise now almost uniformly occupied by CFD and CAD.
It is not difficult to draw the link between Newey’s experience and the way the rise in technology in today’s society has resulted in the alarming trend of people effectively outsourcing their own brains.
With a smartphone always at hand, why bother attempting to retain a piece of information yourself when Google and Wikipedia are never more than a few swipes away?
Why put any brainpower into a witty social media post (or, indeed, a comment on a leading F1 website) when ChatGPT is sat waiting to muster one up in a heartbeat?
In other words, by relying too heavily on tech, we risk placing an artificial limit on the capabilities of the human mind and selling ourselves short.
Some years ago Pedro de la Rosa, who now acts as an ambassador for the Aston Martin team having worked previously with Newey at McLaren, aired his belief that each new generation of F1 driver is better than the last.
With improvements in the areas of fitness, diet and general preparation, he said, drivers will continue to arrive in F1 more advanced – more complete – as the years go by.
It is likely that, as a direct result of the rise of CFD and CAD, the opposite will prove true in the field of engineering.
The next generation of designers may be whizzes in front of a computer screen and know CAD like the back of their hands.
Yet in terms of the fundamentals of engineering they will almost certainly be more limited and less naturally creative than the likes of Newey, simply because advances in technology dictate that they no longer have to be.
The touch and feel that characterises Newey’s best work? That gift of instinctively knowing the right solution for a problem?
When Adrian puts down his pencil for the final time at some stage over the coming years, those talents will go with him.
Never was this more obvious than in the first year of the ground-effect regulations in 2022.
As engineers from rival teams were taken by surprise by the return of porpoising, Newey took it on himself to personally design the front and rear suspension for Red Bull’s first car under the new rules.
While others – notably Mercedes – became obsessed with chasing raw downforce figures at the expense of everything else, it was Newey’s understanding of the importance of establishing a solid platform through the suspension that meant Red Bull was not as affected by bouncing.
The result? A record 15 victories for Max Verstappen in 2022 followed by the most dominant season ever produced by a team and driver 12 months later.
It was no coincidence that it was Adrian who managed to avoid the trap so many others fell into.
Nor was it when, following the news of Newey’s departure in May 2024, Red Bull soon became just another team by joining the great downforce rush and, in the words of Pierre Waché, following rival teams by unwittingly introducing “some characteristics that [were] not designed for the driver.”
So, no, maybe Newey can’t see air after all.
But he can see what others miss.
That, you’ll find in this sport, is quite often what makes the difference.
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