Ruhi Batra, TNN Oct 15, 2011, 06.51AM IST
(Amazingly, Newey always…)
Adrian Newey is the man who has designed Red Bull Racing's championship-winning cars RB6 and RB7. The celebrated engineer talks to TOI about the challenges ahead, Sebastian Vettel and more...
Adrian Newey loves cars. Right down to the last nut and bolt. He competed in a Ford GT40 in 2006, only to destroy the car in an accident -- luckily he escaped with only a cut finger. The wreckage of a Jaguar E-Type at the Goodwood Revival Meeting is still talked about. But what gets his engines stoked like nothing else can, is designing them. The way he talks about the design and the air flow is like how a choreographer brings a dance to life.
"While I imagine the shape of the car, I can visualize the air flowing around it. I can see the invisible waves and currents, the areas of low and high pressure. Then I start thinking about how to shape it," says Newey, chief technical officer of Red Bull Racing Formula One team. Who knew engineers could talk like poets too?
Amazingly, he always uses a pencil rather than a computer to create his dazzling cars. He begins drawing on an A4 sheet and then develops that on a board using freehand sketching. He's obviously very good at what he does. An imposing 119 wins, seven constructors' titles and six drivers' championships are proof of that.
A classmate of the incorrigible petrol head Jeremy Clarkson, Newey got a first class honours degree in aeronautics and astronautics and immediately started working in Formula One, first with the Fittipaldi team and then March. "Growing up, I loved to make model kits of racing machines so I always knew that one day I would become a racing engineer," Newey tells TOI.
He has been an active part of Formula One since 1986 and it wasn't long before stories of his talent had spread in the paddock. It was at Williams in the early 1990s that Newey found fame, dominance and at the end doubt and guilt. The Williams chassis, designed by him, was perhaps one of the biggest reasons the mercurial Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna left McLaren to join Williams.
It was in a Newey-designed FW16 that Senna crashed to his death. Newey and Williams chief Patrick Head were charged with manslaughter in Italy for Senna's death and that incident very nearly forced Newey to consider quitting Formula One. Thankfully for the sport, he didn't.
He was one of the architects of Mclaren's success in the late 90s and early 2000s when Mika Hakkinen was at the wheel. In 2006, he joined Red Bull Racing, a team that was born out of the ashes of Jaguar in 2005. And it is at RBR that Newey has created and developed a car and a team that's the envy of every suit in the paddock.
The Milton-Keyes based RBR is on track to seal the constructors' championship for the second year in a row. Sebastian Vettel has already been crowned king of the track.
"I was lucky to be very successful with Williams and then McLaren, but I needed a new challenge. Looking around at what that fresh challenge could be, joining red Bull Racing was kind of like leaving the safety zone and moving to unknown territory," he states.
The lack of pressure and perhaps expectations helped Newey. The 53-year-old could do his own thing, so to say. "With Red Bull Racing we were a young team, we did not really have any pressure. So the first two years was really about trying to put a team and structure in place and then we could concentrate much more on the design," he explains.
It took him and his team a couple of years to get there but by 2009 he'd designed the RB6, the perfect foil for the brilliant driver that Vettel was. Newey has worked with champions like Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Hakkinen, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve and Kimi Raikkonen.
So when he talks about the calibre of a driver, he knows what he's talking about. And he holds the 24-year-old German in very high esteem.
"Sebastian is very mature at his age and very hard working. He is also very determined. When he's in the paddock, he is always speaking with engineers, checking data and seeing what he did with the car. He wants to understand everything. He is interested in things that are technical but that don't directly affect his driving."
Newey shoots down all talk of him being Red Bull's greatest asset. "It is a combination of car, engine , driver and team. None of these can function independently," is his modest appraisal.
Rewarded with his own Red Bull RB5 for his achievements at the Formula One team, Newey regrets not having enough time to do things he loves.
"I find my biggest enemy is time. The job is very time consuming - and can be over consuming if you are not careful. If you are doing badly, you want to do well. And then when you do, you are under pressure to maintain it. It's the eternal circle," he sighs.
Looking at RBR's current season, there's no reason for Newey to lose any sleep soon.
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Rumour has it that Lewis Hamilton's girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger will be travelling to New Delhi to watch her beau race at the Indian Grand Prix. The lovebirds have also planned a trip to Agra.
