The university project that Newey’s F1 rivals should not forget

OPINION: Red Bull's fortunes were transformed prior to Formula 1's last fundamental rules reset in 2009, as Adrian Newey's contribution helped it to emerge from midfield mediocrity to becoming a title-winning force. With ground effect aerodynamics returning in F1's latest shakeup, Newey's insight could again have a pivotal impact

Jonathan Noble Mar 10, 2022, 11:16 AM

Upd: Mar 10, 2022, 11:31 AM

Formula 1 teams were quite open about how they were caught on the hop by the porpoising problems from the first pre-season test.

Indeed, while F1 historians needed no reminding of the phenomenon that blighted F1 cars during the last ground effect era in the early 1980’s, many of those heading up the designs of the 2022 challengers have never really worked on this type of grand prix car before. As McLaren’s James Key pointed out, when asked in Barcelona about the lessons of the old era, he was just 11 when ground effect was banned in F1.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.