Exclusive: F1's "irreplaceable" design king Newey on Red Bull's edge

The list of Formula 1 accomplishments not featuring the influence of Adrian Newey gets ever-smaller. And in 2023, the Red Bull RB19 finally wrestled the mantle of ‘F1’s most dominant car’ away from the 1988 McLaren MP4/4. For the second time since Newey’s switch from the Woking team in 2006, Red Bull is dominating grand prix racing.

Newey has been in his current post of chief technical officer since joining the team. His role means he sits above current technical director Pierre Wache, but isn’t overly involved in the squad’s process side of its day-to-day engineering, preferring to concentrate on development aspects. Team principal Christian Horner recently explained how Newey’s role has “evolved over the last few years”, and that he “has the ability to come in, come out and work on other projects, and that’s part of the evolution of any team”.

Wache explains how this works. With every new Red Bull and subsequent in-season car development plan, Newey is “coming from sideways and trying to help us or challenge us on different aspects and in different aspects of the team – it could be mechanical design, aero or vehicle dynamics”.

“He’s irreplaceable,” adds the Frenchman. “I would say [Newey’s work is] more challenging [ideas] than [agreeing]. But I think it’s good. Because when you have a step back, you see different things.

“He also has a different background to all of us and some knowledge that we don’t have because we didn’t experience that. He’s a very smart person and he’s still very open-minded. Normally with people with plenty of success, their idea is the best. But he’s not like that. He’s working as a mentor and challenging us.”

In his evolved role, Newey remains a regular on the pitwall for Red Bull at race events throughout each F1 season, still stalking the race grids looking at and analysing other designs. And at last season’s GP in Mexico City, Autosport got the chance to sit down with him for an exclusive interview.

In a wide-ranging conversation – where his softly spoken nature briefly has to compete with the racket of a vacuum cleaner as the team’s hospitality unit is prepared for race day guests, at an event Max Verstappen will go on to win for the third successive year – we learn how he views Red Bull’s journey to its current F1 position. And, most pertinently, what that all means for both the championship’s future and Newey’s own.

Red Bull's CTO sat down with Autosport in a wide-ranging interview

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Newey on… Preparing for F1’s new ground-effect era

“At the first level it’s sitting down and trying to understand the opportunities within the regulations, which can be as simple as loopholes to explore,” explains Newey on how he approaches understanding new F1 rulesets. “But, more often than not it’s not a loophole – it’s just trying to understand how within these rules what we can create to fill the best overall package. It’s not just the aerodynamics, it’s also the mechanical layout etc.

“I must admit when I first saw the early draft of these regulations, which would have been in 2020, I was quite depressed by them. They seemed very prescriptive. Other teams felt that as well and so we managed to get a bit of relaxation on some of those restrictions.

“But then with those restrictions in mind, once we got into the details, then there was much more room for interpretation within the various boxes, gradient slopes and so forth than it appeared at first sight. And I think that was visible at the start of 2022, when obviously teams arrived with a variety of visually very different solutions.

"I enjoy – and this is at a personal level, as opposed to speaking for the team – regulation changes. Because it gives a chance to look at new avenues" Adrian Newey

“An advantage I do have is that in my early career I worked as an aerodynamicist, mechanical designer and race engineer, giving me experience in all three of our disciplines. So, having gone through the regs with the guys, I sat down and worked on the overall architecture of the car and then drew the front and rear suspension together with the surrounding nose, chassis and bodywork of what became RB18.

“It is these areas where it’s about trying to balance the often conflicting requirements of mechanical design, aero and vehicle dynamics and something I very much enjoy the challenge of. It is also crucial to try to get these areas right at the start of a new regulation period. If you do, you can then evolve year to year rather than having to completely change the car for a subsequent year.

“RB19 was very much an evolution of RB18, RB20 will be a third generation evo – just as RB5 spawned the evolutionary approach that lasted through to RB9. Now, of course, everyone is starting to converge – through [2023] particularly. And that will probably continue through to the end of 2025, when these rules cease.”

Newey is intriguingly placed to comment on the nuances of F1’s current ruleset. After all, he was working as a designer for the Fittipaldi squad when the championship’s last ground-effect era ended in 1982, having just finished studying aeronautics and astronautics at Southampton University.

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Newey was a designer for Fittipaldi at close of F1’s previous ground-effect era

This led Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton to say “knowing that Adrian did his thesis on ground-effect cars, it’s no surprise what he has done and created” when Red Bull’s current purple patch really took off midway through the 2022 campaign. Newey’s project was, however, specifically focused on sportscar ground-effect aero.

But Red Bull’s success in this F1 era is far from the first time a team deploying Newey’s knowledge has vaulted to the front of the field after a major rules reset. There was his eventual nailing of the 1995 wing and floor rules that swept Williams to the 1996 and 1997 titles after the Benetton/Michael Schumacher success interregnum in the mid-1990s, then McLaren’s 1998-99 titles with Mika Hakkinen after Newey had joined ahead of the move to narrow cars for 1998. And, of course, there was Red Bull’s first period of domination with Sebastian Vettel in the upper-aero-stripped cars from 2009.

“I enjoy – and this is at a personal level, as opposed to speaking for the team – regulation changes,” Newey says. “Because it gives a chance to look at new avenues, providing it’s, if you like, a creative set of regulation changes. So, I do enjoy that fact and the opportunity to look at things from a fresh perspective.

“Now that we are into the third year of these regs, it’s very much about lots of very detailed evolution. But it’s still rewarding when we find bits and pieces here and there. Of course, the increments, certainly for us, seem to be getting smaller and smaller. Whether somebody else manages to find some big leap or not, we’ll find out.”

Rewind to the beginning of 2022, and the talk across the F1 field was of porpoising impacting the performance of the new ground-effect machines. But not at Red Bull, which was quickly on top of the phenomenon after the opening test at Barcelona.

Sources have suggested that one important reason for this was Newey’s early career experience helping Red Bull’s current designers avoid the pitfalls other teams fell into; to not, for example, chase the peak downforce levels that simulations had indicated Mercedes’ ‘zeropod’ approach could produce – because a stable platform was more important for retaining overall downforce. Does Newey agree with this suggestion?

“Probably a bit – in as much as through age, if you like, I was around [back then],” he replies. “And so learning from that perhaps gave me a bit of an advantage in terms of knowing that this is potentially going to be a problem. And that we needed to, the team, make sure that the design approach took that into account.”

Newey was able to draw on his formative racing experiences to avoid ground effect pitfalls

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Newey on… Red Bull’s current car advantage

Such efforts at Red Bull early in 2022 were rewarded handsomely when it was finally able to lighten the RB18 and see off Ferrari’s faltering challenge. Then, for the RB19, it refined the concept, with the other teams all finally abandoning the different design paths of the early new ground-effect era to, in effect, copy Red Bull’s approach.

Still the team went on to blast the opposition on an unprecedented scale last year, the dominance secured against the backdrop of its reduced aero testing allowance, first by the sliding scale rules introduced in 2021, then with its penalty for breaching the cost cap that year. But putting the question of the RB19’s key strengths to Newey gets a surprising response, plus more insight into how Red Bull had first viewed the new rules ahead of 2022.

“Crikey!” he exclaims, albeit still softly. “We’ve tried to concentrate on race performance over qualifying performance. That’s something we adopted as a philosophy when we were researching and designing the RB18. And that was really on the basis that it did look as if the aerodynamic regulation changes were going to make overtaking easier. And, therefore, race performance would become relatively more important compared to qualifying had been previously. So, that was something we had to look at.

"The computer age really kicked in and that, more than budget perhaps, was the thing that changed the whole way we go about researching and designing a car" Adrian Newey

“So, what are the 19’s strengths? Typically we’ve had good tyre deg. Not necessarily in all races the best tyre deg, but on average we’ve had good tyre deg. And, generally, we’ve managed to have a car that’s competitive regardless of circuit layout. Some circuits, or some natures of circuit, we’re more competitive than others. But with the exception of Singapore [where Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz took the only non-Red Bull victory of 2023], which we made a bit of a mess of, then we’ve also had a decent level of consistency.”

Of any weaknesses in the RB19, which Wache and Verstappen have explained concern mainly bumps, kerb-riding and low-speed corners, Newey says “typically at the very high downforce circuits we tend to, for whatever reason, have less of an advantage than at the more medium to low downforce circuits”.

Newey on… How F1 has changed

Newey’s first job as an F1 technical director was in 1990 with the fledgling Leyton House/March squad, before he joined Williams as chief designer midway through that year. This was after being forced to choose between accepting a lesser role at the now failing Leyton House team or leave – “effectively I was sacked”, as Newey put it in his 2017 autobiography.

In those subsequent 32 years, he’s helped secure 12 constructors’ championships. For Newey, the biggest change in how F1 teams operated in that time concerns how design departments – and the squads overall – have expanded in size.

Photo by: Andre Vor / Sutton Images

The first F1 technical director role for Newey (far right) came with Leyton House

“Through the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the sizes of the engineering team in an F1 team didn’t grow hugely,” he explains. “I think when I was at Leyton House we were five engineers and that was it. At Williams we were probably up to 20 or so, maybe 25.

“But then the computer age really kicked in and that, more than budget perhaps, was the thing that changed the whole way we go about researching and designing a car. None of that was possible before the computing power that started to happen somewhere around the mid-1990s and things really started to change. Coupled with budgets going up, it led to this mushrooming of engineering teams in all F1 teams. And that I would say was the sea change.”

Newey on… How Red Bull has changed

Although Newey’s role within Red Bull’s design team has altered through the years, with the squad keen to highlight how he now mentors its younger engineers, his influence on its working practices remains. As the 20th anniversary of his departure from McLaren approaches, he explains how the growth of F1 teams overall led to his initial reshaping of Red Bull’s technical department as it expanded from what had been the Stewart and Jaguar entries before 2005.

“You then take that growth [begun by the impact of computing power],” he says. “It’s then obviously how you make sure that you’re getting the right people – because it’s ultimately still a people sport. So, on the engineering side, it’s about trying to make sure that we had a really good quality of talent on the engineering team across the disciplines. And then the ethos of how that team then works.

“We try to run a very inclusive, very flat structure as much as possible. Every F1 team has the three disciplines [aero, mechanical design and vehicle dynamics], and certainly when I first started at Red Bull, those three disciplines were in different rooms – one was even in a different building. So, building a mezzanine, getting everybody sitting together, trying to reduce the meeting culture and the email culture a little bit to encourage people to actually talk to each other, was something that we tried to do.

“How that compares to other teams today, I cannot comment. But that’s something we’ve tried to do – make it an inclusive environment.”

Here there are obvious parallels with what Red Bull wants for its rebranded junior team in 2024, when Visa Cash App RB’s aerodynamics department is expanded to work more closely with the senior squad. But in terms of operating practices in the very prescriptive current ruleset, and within the new cost cap restrictions, Newey explains that this “changes the make-up [of car design] slightly”.

“You have to be very disciplined and I think that’s where we as a team have improved,” he says. “That the discipline we now have within the team and the methodology to be able to really explore those small gains relentlessly is, as we’ve matured as a team, something we’ve become stronger at.”

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Newey was lynchpin of Red Bull’s previous era of domination from 2009 and has overseen the former Jaguar team's technical evolution

Newey on… F1’s 2026 rule changes

Because Newey has such a successful track record through so many F1 regulation changes and Red Bull’s current dominant position, much is expected of the combination in the 2026 rules reset. The changes mainly focus on the engines, where the importance of electric power and sustainable fuels will be increased. But it was striking how Red Bull lobbied last year for additional investigations into how these will work in reality – the team is set to produce its own engines for the first time via its new Powertrains corps, in partnership with Ford.

One of the most hotly debated elements of the upcoming rules concerns the expanded use of active aero in the chassis regulations. One senior F1 designer recently told Autosport this should be considered a “fudge” for the increased electrical output of the new engines possibly leaving cars unable to run at full power for a whole lap.

But Newey says active aero “doesn’t concern me. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Trying to drive for greater aerodynamic efficiency is clearly a good goal. And why should active aero not be part of that? There’s a huge amount of road cars you see with spoilers lopping up and down on the boot lid and so forth. So, why not have that in racing?

"Having been involved in the start and been involved with Christian and Helmut [Marko] in how we developed the team, then why would I want to walk away from that?" Adrian Newey

“Active aero only got a bad name when wings were falling off back in the 1960s. We’re well beyond that now. Active aero has to be the future of road cars, so I think it’s appropriate that F1 should be displaying its power.”

Newey on… His F1 future

Last May, Newey signed a new deal with Red Bull that ties him to the team for the long term. He says he’s therefore “absolutely” pleased to be continuing his current work. But his description of the only time he felt close to leaving – and F1 overall – in 2014, as Red Bull’s first era of success ended, actually increases pressure for 2026. If it all comes down to engine performance once again, the team should reflect how its destiny, plus that of one its star employees, is now in its own hands.

“At Leyton House in the late 1980s, we were on a tiny budget,” Newey concludes. “And as a team we were a bit up and down and inconsistent. But we had some good results and had we been allowed to continue to grow and have proper funding, I don’t know where it would have got to.

“[Former Autosport editor] Ian Phillips was the team principal, then we were responsible for how the team grew. And when I then joined Williams and McLaren, they were two great teams that had won races and championships way before I ever arrived. So, there was very little required on the infrastructure side – it was really just about trying to bring a bit on the design side.

Newey remains enthused by the challenge of designing winning Formula 1 cars

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“Whereas that’s why I joined Red Bull [to build a technical team]. It was a bit of a career risk, but I wanted to again be involved with the development of the team at the start. So, having been involved in the start and been involved with Christian and Helmut [Marko] in how we developed the team, then why would I want to walk away from that?

“The only time it came close was in 2014 and that was for completely different reasonings. It was very simply at that time we had a power unit which wasn’t performing, which happens of course. And there didn’t seem to be a huge desire from the manufacturer [Renault] at the very top level to put the investment in to turn that around.

“So, you’re then in a bit of a depressing position where, as we all know, to win championships you’ve got to have the three key factors of driver, chassis and engine – and if one of those is weak you won’t win…”

The influence of F1's design genius shows no sign of slowing down

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool