SEP 8 – Adrian Newey is joining Aston Martin on a salary that could rise to £30m, including bonuses and add-ons. That is a lot of money for an engineer – but then Newey is not just any engineer.
That money is believed to be more than all the drivers are earning, bar Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris. And in terms of wider British sporting figures, Newey would be behind Anthony Joshua, Rory McIlroy and Tyson Fury, according to business magazine Forbes.
It is an eye-watering number, but many would argue the 65-year-old is worth every penny.
Newey is regarded as the greatest car designer in F1 history. His statistics alone speak for themselves – 13 drivers’ championships and 12 constructors’ titles across three different teams in a F1 career which really took off from 1988.
But with Newey it is not just about the statistics. It is about what is behind them. He is a visionary, in more than one sense.
It is his unique qualities that Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll has bought into, hoping they will be the icing on the cake of an investment in facilities and staff that has already totalled hundreds of millions of pounds.
Newey, Stroll believes, is what is needed to turn his team into title contenders within a couple of years.
It is an expensive decision, but one founded on many years of evidence. Newey is as close to a guarantee of success as it gets in F1.
On one level, his skill is to see in an arcane and complex set of technical regulations the secrets of what is possible to unlock the most performance. And performance in F1 is primarily to do with aerodynamics.
“So we decided to go pull-rod front, push-rod rear, which was opposite to what most cars had been in the previous rules. We felt that’s what best suited the aerodynamic requirements of the car. So I think we managed to get the fundamentals of the car right when it came out at the start of last year.”
Newey is able to see these key influencing factors because he has a uniquely rounded set of abilities.
A genius designer, and an aerodynamic visionary, he is also rooted in the practicalities of what a car needs to be fast. His extreme competitiveness, and lack of engineering arrogance, ensures a ruthless focus on performance.
So, for example, he understands that it is pointless chasing peak downforce figures if they are produced only in certain conditions and therefore create a car that is nervous and unpredictable to drive.
For Newey, it is all about accessing the maximum amount of performance for the maximum amount of time. It sounds simple, but it is a formula so many F1 designers seem to forget remarkably often.
How much will his move hurt Red Bull and help Aston Martin?
It is an imponderable question, but the beginnings of the answer to the first part look like they are already being seen.
The first-order reason for Newey’s departure from Red Bull is because he has been singularly unimpressed by the controversy surrounding team principal Christian Horner, who has been accused by a female employee of sexual harassment and coercive, controlling behaviour, which he denies. Two separate internal Red Bull investigations have dismissed the complaint.
But also in the mix have been tensions at the team as to where credit was due for the success of the cars. Horner has tended from time to time in recent years to downplay Newey’s influence, and talk up that of technical director Pierre Wache and aerodynamics chief Enrico Balbo.
Newey pushed back against this inside the team. Last year, after an interview Horner gave in which he addressed this topic, Newey is said to have sent Horner a detailed email explaining all the times he had made crucial interventions. His wife Amanda was less discreet about it – she went on social media to describe the claims as “a load of hogwash”.
The roots of the claims about diminishing influence were that at Red Bull, Newey was no longer full-time on F1. He invested about 50% of his working week on it. Wache leads what is clearly a remarkable team of designers, and the various departments report into him.
But that does not necessarily mean Newey was not hugely influential. Would Red Bull have hit on their design philosophy without his sprinkle of stardust, his vision for what was necessary?
There is only one reality; guessing the outcome of a different set of circumstances would be just that – a guess.
But the lesson of history would suggest Newey’s presence was critical – for the past 30 years in F1, there has been no better guarantee of a competitive car than that Newey was involved in its design.
At 65, he could have retired, live off his millions and gone sailing on his new luxury yacht. But he was never going to. You do not negotiate an early exit from your contract, ensuring you can work for a new team in time to affect their 2026 design, if you intend to kick back with your feet up and chill out.
Newey had talks with Ferrari, but their interest diminished.
At Aston Martin, they seem to have everything needed to become a success.
A brand new facility, plenty of resource, an expensively assembled engineering support structure, a works engine partnership with Honda, who are joining from Red Bull for 2026, and one of the greatest drivers in history in Fernando Alonso, who at 43 is still delivering, and with whom Newey has always wanted to work.
Last year, I asked Newey how long he meant to go on. He said that back when he was 50, he did not expect still to be working by now. But then he had discussed it with ex-F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone and US racing mogul Roger Penske, who are both, as he put it, “still working at quite a ripe old age and are still very mentality agile”. They both told him not to stop working.
“Unfortunately,” Newey said, “my father retired at 65, and kind of ended up a little bit lost, I suppose, if I’m honest. I don’t think he’d mind me saying that.
“So I am conscious of all these things. Equally, F1 is a very involving sport and I still love it.
“I have been fortunate enough to be doing what I wanted to do from about the age of 10 – be an engineer in motor racing. So while I still enjoy it, I would like to still be involved.”
Now Newey has made his decision. He will be around for another five years at least. And who would bet against him working his magic again?
A version of this article was first published on 2 May 2024
By BBC
