F1 People - Adrian Newey
- Length: 3:59
- Size: 3.7 MB
- File: people13.mp3
- Transcript: people13.pdf
- Torrent: people13.torrent
Welcome to the penultimate episode of F1 People, a second series of seven short shows dedicated to profiling the important names in Formula 1. So far this series we’ve looked at both drivers, commentators, and the brains behind the car. Today we return to the latter subject, with Adrian Newey.
Adrian Newey was born on December 26th 1958 in Stratford-Upon-Avon, in the UK. He did not enjoy school, but worked hard enough to attend the University of Southampton. He gained a First Class honours degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the age of 22. His final thesis was on ground effects. Newey immediately joined the Fittipaldi Formula 1 team straight out of university and began working in motorsport. In 1981, he joined March and began to design the cars. His first was the March GTP sports car that won the GTP title two years in a row. Then he moved to March’s Indycar team, and worked on the 1984 car. Another successfully designed car took seven victories in its first year, and the title for the next two. Newey worked as both a designer and a race engineer, becoming close friends with his title winning driver Bobby Rahal.
Despite his success in the States, Newey wanted to return to F1, so he joined the FORCE team to try and revive their flagging prospects. The team withdrew at the end of 1986, and Newey returned to March as chief designer for their F1 team. He immediately began to innovate, finding the loopholes in the aerodynamic regulations, and striving for perfection across the car. When the March team became Leyton House, Newey was promoted to technical director, but relations did not stay so good for too long. Questions were asked whether his constant quest for complete aero efficiency was causing problems elsewhere, and whether this was the case or not, the team’s fortunes began to fall. They let Newey go in 1990.
He wasn’t out of work for long, however, as Patrick Head at Williams saw what a talent he was and signed him up. With many more resources available to him, and a like-minded technical partner in Patrick Head, the pairing flourished, and Williams became a success. They took two driver and constructors championships with Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost respectively.
In 1994, things started to go sour. The performance of the Williams dropped off and Benetton took full advantage to take the constructors lead, although they did eventually manage to pull back a third title. When the newly signed Ayrton Senna died that year, and legal investigations took place, the strain began to tell between Newey and his managers. He was ready to move on and be technical lead again, but the strong Williams/Head bond would never be broken. 1995 saw the team lose their consecutive title dominance, and by 1996, Newey was on gardening leave.
He joined McLaren the following year, and revived another old design to bring the team two titles over the next four years. He now had 10 titles from cars he had designed, and although the next few years saw dominance pass to Ferrari, no one questioned Newey’s abilities in the engineering field. In fact, his old friend Bobby Rahal, who was now managing the Jaguar F1 team, tried to persuade Newey to join them and turn around another struggling constructor. Newey was tempted, but ultimately stayed with Ron Dennis and McLaren. The embarrassment for Jaguar meant Rahal left the sport a few months later.
Towards the end of his career with McLaren, speculation mounted year on year over whether he would return to Williams or retire, but Newey signed with Red Bull Racing for 2006 – the team that used to be Jaguar. He remains there now, with the team a competitive mid-field runner.
Not content with being a mastermind in aerodynamics, Newey also likes to get behind the wheel. In 2007, he took part in the 24 Hours Le Mans race, finishing 22nd, but fourth in his class. Could do better, I suppose, but at least he can be happy in the knowledge that he’s one of the best designers in the sport.
Thanks for listening to today’s F1 People. We have only one more VIP to talk about but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out who it is. Join me then for the last in this series of F1 People.
Theme music: Natives of the New Dawn, People.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:47 pmSteven Roy said:
I have had a comment disappear.
There have been 13 people killed in a bomb blast in Instanbul
July 27th, 2008 at 11:40 pmDan Brunell said:
Great job. I never knew that Newey was the mastermind behind Bobby Rahal racing. I probably saw him in the paddock at Portland when CART used to race there when I was a kid. Rahal was one of my favorite drivers and I used to stand at the gate to look over the team as they prepare for qualifying and the race. I probably saw him and didn’t have a clue who he was.
Not to get off the topic of Adrian Newey, but I think found a single sentence that encapsulates my frustration with Formula One…
Source: http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/news/story?id=3507046
This year at the NASCAR race at Indy, they had a horrible time with tire wear. During practice, a set would last as little as 6 laps before the cars were running on the cords. Instead of passing blaming on everyone else in the sport; everyone in NASCAR worked together and made it work. The tire manufacture had to give out extra sets and NASCAR had a mandatory caution every 12 laps to pit all the cars, but it worked and the fans got to see all of their drivers and a interesting race. If this happened (again) in F1, Max would be picking fights, Bernie counting his money in a corner, the teams would be yelling at each other, the drivers would raise a conception fit, and the fans would get frustrated and put off.
Yes, the wounds of Indy 2005 are still very fresh with me.
July 27th, 2008 at 11:57 pmJordan Allen said:
@Dan:
You are a “West Coast” guy, well, as far as I can tell, so I can not figure out why you keep harping about the the US Grand Prix at Indy. Indy is a decent place to have an F1 race, but surely, Watkins Glen, Sebring, Riverside, and Long Beach were and are far better venus for the U.S. Grand Prix.
Of course, Well will gladly lend you Yanks the use of Mosport Park for a Race weekend if you really do think you can not find better than Indy for the US Grand Prix… Heck the next year we will throw in Mont-Tremblant….
July 28th, 2008 at 12:11 amDan Brunell said:
Jordan;
I would love for the Grand Prix to be moved to Long Beach, Sears Point, or even dare I say, Laguna Seca. (I actually wrote an article about this earlier on another website.)
However, Indy is the only racetrack right now in the US that can hold the USGP because of the astronomical requirements of F1 in terms of infrastructure and capital. Frankly, we are stuck with it. Until someone else is stupid enough to give Bernie the money and update or build a track; there is no alternative. Because Bernie, Max, and the rest of the F1 establishment has soiled the waters here, no one in there right mind would ever think that a GP makes financial sense or is worth the headache. So I am not holding my breath for another USGP any time soon.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:33 amJordan Allen said:
I know, let us throw a match in the river that goes though Cleveland, setting the river on fire. Then we can have a F1 night race at Cleveland Internatioanl Airport. The fire will make the night so bright that with driver can see the track without any lighting and the publicity would be huge!
July 28th, 2008 at 12:50 amDan Brunell said:
As long a portion of the track jumps the flaming river. That would be awesome. I would recommend San Francisco with the awesome hills and great vistas. Plus in Frisco, you could do something called “Hippie Bowling” where the car hating thugs who rule that place try to block off the streets not knowing they are just a on-coming blur at 280 KPH.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:01 amJordan Allen said:
Ahhh, Dan, are you trying to get me in hot water here. (No pun intended) but, let us not talk about the movie Bullett as that bring up very fond memories of the actress in Bullet in the movie that made her famous or infamous or notorious. (Take your pick). But there is no way the dampers in F1 cars are going to handle San Fran notorious hills.
Sadly, Cleveland International Airport is built up from the shoreline of Lake Eire, so I do not think it is within jumping distance of the river. But the glow of the fire should be bright enough for the drivers to see.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:06 amJordan Allen said:
I wonder, since he is Hungary’s first and so far, only F1 driver, does that make Zsolt Baugartner an F1 VIP worthy enough to warrant Christine’s attention?
.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:26 amme said:
hmm, what this tells me is the people running IMS are beyond stupid and don’t learn from mistakes (theirs or otherwise).
part of the problems in ‘05 were related to the diamond cut surface. who thought that would be a good idea? it wrecked tyres in a test prior to the f1 race and then it did the same when the teams arrived. now it’s doing it to nascar rubber.
any other circuits have this much trouble?
the organisers are proving themselves to be incompetent at running a major race series, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to host the usgp again should they?
July 28th, 2008 at 9:21 amDan Brunell said:
Good point. I still can’t figure out why they did that. You think they would test that stuff before screwing up the track. However the compare and constrast between the two race series is remarkible in how they handled the problem. NASCAR came together with all interested parties and made it work as well as it could. F1 just started blaming each other and made it a fisaco.
See Tony George and the rest of the Indy community know that there is really no alternative to Indy for the USGP. There is no plan or really any desire on the part of any in the race community over here to hold the Grand Prix. Even larger track ownership groups like International Speedway Coorperation (who own Wakins Glen) and Speedway Motorsports (who own Sears Point) laugh at Formula One because the business model of F1 is absolutely insane. Why put in $100 million in track “inprovements” and then bribe Bernie $10-20 million just to hold a race that you can’t make a profit on?
July 28th, 2008 at 10:13 amme said:
that’s true, but in this instance the issue affected all competitors didn’t it? i’d imagine if f1 suffered a similar problem this year, the teams + bridgestone would just sort it out.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:15 pmz-baumgartner said:
Definitely!
July 29th, 2008 at 2:12 amJourneyer said:
Yep, and just to add, NASCAR’s solution was a huge risk to the drivers. As it was, there were a good number of blowouts. If any ONE of the drivers got hurt, or worse, they’d be in even bigger trouble as it is! The risks should’ve outweighed the show, but they didn’t. The show they delivered wasn’t good enough for the fans, many of whom are still asking for refunds.
Way I see it, the NASCAR folks didn’t do the right thing.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:01 ammJohnHurt said:
Lowes Motor Speedway had the same problem after diamond cutting a year or two ago, although the ramifications to the race weren’t quite as great.
Also, in June at Pocono raceway Goodyear completely missed the tire and there were something like 20 or 30 blown left front tires.
It’s also worth noting that while tire wear at Indy is always a little different (Indy’s always a little different, that’s the whole point), the combination of the new cars (run at Indy for the first time), the above average abrasiveness of the track, and some incredibly poor decisions by NASCAR and Goodyear all acted together to make it such a fiasco. It’s a little disingenuous to blame a track treatment over 3 years old for the quality of a race held a day ago.
I also live nearer to the track than most people here, I get a little defensive of her =). Not that I’m defending what happened yesterday.
And more on topic, enjoyed the series, thanks much.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:55 amme said:
fair enough, noted. but can you tell me why circuits diamond-cut their asphalt at all? from what you’re saying, it doesn’t sound like a smart thing to do.
diamonds: hardest known naturally-occurring mineral on earth
rubber: not so much
July 29th, 2008 at 3:07 pmmJohnHurt said:
Well, I know there are two main results, and I’m not sure which is the desired one. The first is to smooth the track. I think that’s why Indy and Lowes were done but I could very easily be wrong. If a track has gotten bumpy over time and they can’t or don’t want to do a full tear down and repave (which would typically reduce the track to one racing groove for at least a year until the asphalt wears in) they can do the diamond cutting to it - everything gets ground but the bumps get ground down smooth to the rest of the track.
The second thing it does is increase grip, which in theory helps speeds and passing, but it does it by increasing friction, which increases tire wear.
I went looking, and according to the history page at the track site the last major work on the oval ended in november 2004. So before Sunday’s race there had been 4 Indy 500s, 3 USGPs, 3 400s, and lots of support races (pro cup, indy lites, etc). Given all of that, it seems a lot easier to blame the thing that actually changed this year, which was the car and tires they used, not the track.
(quick aside, I just reread my last post and noticed I left out that it was June 2005 for Pocono.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:59 pmme said:
ahh, okay. well that does make some sense.
sounds like a recipe for disaster
true. but two separate tyre manufactures (one of which had no competition) on the same track? seems a heck of a co-incidence.