Adrian Newey recounts ‘utter disaster’ which taught valuable F1 lesson

Adrian Newey, the legendary Formula 1 designer, offered an insight into how he approaches dealing with adversity, something which he feels is inevitable in work and life.

Newey recalled how he went from bursting onto the Formula 1 scene by designing a Leyton House car which “overachieved”, to its successor being a “complete and utter disaster”, resulting in doubt among his colleagues and himself, and the learning of a very valuable lesson.

Adrian Newey recalls important ‘utter disaster’

After enjoying IndyCar title-winning success in the mid-1980s, Newey embarked on a Formula 1 career with March/Leyton House.

He quickly learned a very valuable lesson, one which has shaped what has become a legendary career.

Newey has contributed to a total of 26 world championship wins, and is now looking to add to that tally with Aston Martin. He has been hard at work designing the F1 2026 Aston Martin to the new regulations, and was recently named the squad’s new team principal.

“I think I’m lucky that I have a passion in something, and then it’s a matter of trying to develop that, work with everybody, with my colleagues, and develop resilience as well,” said Newey via the James Allen on F1 podcast.

“Everybody remembers the good results, of course, but they don’t the duff years, and the duff races. They’re very often actually what shapes you and how you react to that, and how you kind of try to keep confidence in yourself.

“There’s an example in my particular case. I’d kind of had a bit of a golden career in my 20s, in as much as I’d become chief designer, initially on the sports car project, when I was only 24, and then the IndyCar projects for March, production team, when I was 25, and then I’d become technical director at Leyton House, and I was 27.

“All of those cars had either won races or championships. The ’88 Leyton House [team then operating as March – editor], this first Formula 1 car for which I was responsible, overachieved. I became the new sort of kid on the block, if you like, in engineering terms, in Formula 1.

“And possibly, I allowed it to go to my head a little bit. In as much as I was reading all these glowing articles in the press, and I was sort of thinking, ‘Well, if you think that first one was good, wait until you see the second one’, the 1989 car.

“And that, was a complete and utter disaster.

“I think in hindsight, actually – of course it didn’t feel that way at the time – it was actually very good for me, because I think, first of all, it teaches that there’s no place for ego in engineering.

“You have to keep your feet on the ground, remain objective.

“Obviously one of the great things and one of the downsides of Formula 1 is that it’s very public… and it wasn’t just a bad couple of races, [it was] the whole flipping year, and I personally, didn’t understand what was wrong with the car.

“So you start to lose confidence in yourself, one or two colleagues at work who kind of started to lose confidence in me as well.

“It’s at that point, I think, that you have to try to dig deep and believe in yourself really that yes, life is full of these ups and downs. Life, as we all know, is not flat, and somebody says, ‘All I want to do is be happy’. Well, it’s just not realistic, is it? And it would be boring if it was, because then you’d lose your relativity.”

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Newey explained how his time at university also shaped his method of responding to adversity.

He continued: “So I think kind of getting through that, and the grit and determination… I’d also, to an extent, got it, particularly at Southampton University, where I hadn’t done my A levels, I’d done a thing called an OND, an Ordinary National Diploma.

“So I found that first year at Southampton, where I only had 16-year-old maths, and all the lecturers assumed you had 18-years-old maths, really, really tough, and nearly dropped out of uni.

“So I think that was a good lesson. This 1989 year was a good lesson, that things are going to go badly, and it’s how you how react to that, and how you try to keep your own self-confidence and self-belief that if you keep going at it, things will turn around.”

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