Analysis: clever money goes to designers

Yet the brilliant British designer has been the talk of Formula One this week after Red Bull's stunning coup in prising him away from McLaren.

Although Newey has insisted that money was not the motivation for his decision to leave McLaren after nearly nine years, his reputed salary has got tongues wagging nonetheless.

Some estimates have suggested the 46-year-old will be paid $10 million a year - far more than most drivers earn and more even than World Champion Fernando Alonso is likely to have received from Renault last season.

While Michael Schumacher's earnings at Ferrari remain in a league of their own, at least half of the teams on the starting grid could have sorted their driver line-up and had change left over from Newey's reputed pay packet.

Some, even in a glamour sport known for throwing money around, think the situation is getting out of hand.

"I don't know how long it can go on for," Gary Anderson, who designed the first Jordan Formula One car in 1991 and was technical director at Stewart and Jaguar, told Reuters.

"I'm not jealous that I missed it, but for sure it's a bit sad that people are earning that sort of money at that sort of level. Outside industry couldn't sustain that in any way whatsoever, so why should motor racing?"

Right Message

Red Bull, bankrolled by Austrian energy drink billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, believe their investment will pay off handsomely.

"Given the choice of Adrian Newey or Michael Schumacher, I'd go for Adrian every time," said team boss Christian Horner.

"I think it sends out exactly the right message in that we are totally serious about what we want to do and what we want to achieve."

With Ferrari engines next season, and some top technical brains already on board in former Renault designer Mark Smith and ex-Jaguar technical director Guenther Steiner, there can be no doubt about that.

Newey's arrival will make Red Bull, who can keep a lid on driver salaries by bringing a steady stream of talent through from their junior programmes, an even more desirable destination for ambitious engineers.

Red Bull already look like far more serious contenders than they did a week ago but it will still take time for Newey's arrival to bear fruit.

There are some who argue that his influence, despite being a Championship winner with both Williams and McLaren, may even be over-rated.

There are two schools of thought - those who say that modern Formula One design is a team effort with no indispensable individuals and those who are convinced that one man can make all the difference.

The late Harvey Postlethwaite, one of the most influential and innovative of designers, liked to say that "any idiot can design a racing car, the trick is to design a quick one".

That is certainly a view shared by Toyota's Mike Gascoyne, who worked with Postlethwaite at Tyrrell and whose own salary is not far off Newey's.

"The lessons I learned at Tyrrell have been applicable wherever I have gone since, including Toyota," he says.

"It is based on the philosophy of investing resources, however big or small, in the right areas, and the trick in being a technical director is the ability to do this."

Pulling Together

The modern Formula One technical director is like the conductor of an orchestra, not expected to know how to play all the instruments but the one who pulls it all together.

Anderson, despite his reservations about the sort of money being thrown around, had no doubts about Newey's ability to produce results.

"I think you've got to class him (Newey) in a little box of his own, to be honest," he said. "I think he is definitely one that has got a good handle on everything.

"Everybody needs motivation and I think that got lost in the fact that McLaren believed they could build a structure to replace Adrian.

"I think they are probably just about to find out that they can't," added the Irishman.

As Frank Williams said when Newey left his team for McLaren in 1997: "Losing someone as good as Adrian is only half the story. The other half is that in future he will be working against you."