Ex-F1 driver recalls dumping ‘very unconcentrated’ Adrian Newey in ‘rotten privilege’ claim

Former driver Christian Danner believes he is the only person in the history of F1 who did not want to work with Adrian Newey after an early meeting in both their careers.

The German raced in F1 from 1985 to 1989 but before he got there, he came across one Adrian Newey.

Christian Danner recalls early encounter with ‘unconcentrated’ Adrian Newey

Danner crossed paths with Newey in the early 1980s when the future designer was almost fresh out of university. Danner, who was racing in Renault 5s at the time, got his F2 break through the March-MBW team where he would meet Newey.

“A guy [Manfred Cassani] came to me and said: ‘I have a BMW M1 Procar and an F2 team, Christian, why don’t you come to me and I’ll make you a Formula 1 driver?’” Danner told Formula Scout.

“I did five or six races with that M1, one practice in an F2 race on the Nurburgring and one hillclimb race in the F2 car,” before BMW offered him “a seat in the March-BMW works team” for 1981.

“Never having any problems with confidence, I knew that I had no idea about driving single-seaters, so they sent me to Goodwood for a test [and] I was quick.

“The trouble was my team-mates were first and the runner-up in the European Formula 3 championship, Corrado Fabi and Thierry Boutsen; they taught me the lesson that driving a single-seater is not all that easy. And it took me the 1981 season to get on top of it.”

Danner was in need of a race engineer and Newey was the one put up to the job, but the former soon realised his new partner did not have a talent for being a race engineer.

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“I didn’t want to work with Newey and I told him: ‘Adrian, you’ve got no experience, I’ve got no experience, this is not going to match’. He was very unconcentrated. He [once] forgot to unplug the radio, and he didn’t know what he was doing on fuel consumption. He was just a young designer, you know?

“So, I ended up with Ralph running my car and Adrian ended up with [Johnny] Cecotto. It was Cecotto, myself and [Corrado] Fabi, who eventually won the championship.

“I’m the only person in the world of motor racing who has ever said I don’t want to work with Adrian Newey, which is kind of a rotten privilege. But both Adrian and I are still laughing about it.”

The rest is, of course, history with Newey moving into a designer role while Danner raced for Zakspeed, Osella, Arrows and Rial in F1.

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