Andrew Hone/Getty Images for Red Bull
Following a nearly two-decade stint with Red Bull’s Formula 1 team, famed race-car designer Adrian Newey is stepping down from his role as the squad’s chief technical officer in the first quarter of next year. The 65-year-old Newey is an absolute unicorn when it comes to designing vehicles responsible for winning championships and spanning series that include IndyCar, IMSA, and Formula 1. Over his 40-year career, Newey has developed cars that have won more than 150 grand prix races, 13 World Drivers’ Championships, and 12 World Constructors’ Championships across three Formula 1 teams.
It was Newey who designed the Red Bull RB18 for the 2022 season, a car which had a 77.3 percent win rate for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, helping Red Bull garner both the World Drivers’ Championship and World Constructors’ Championship titles. And in 2023, Newey’s RB19 car had a 95 percent win rate, again repeating success in the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship contests.
Why step away from such smashing success? Reports abounded of a falling out between Newey and the Red Bull team as a result of team principal Christian Horner’s alleged sexual harassment scandal and the resulting internal investigation, though ESPN sources claim Newey’s departure was already known and unrelated to Horner. As team principal, Horner, for his part, has been effusively glowing about Newey to the media, saying, “All of our greatest moments from the past 20 years have come with Adrian’s hand on the technical tiller.”
As for what the future holds, BusinessF1 Magazine claims that back in April of 2024, Newey signed a deal with Scuderia Ferrari for $105 million for the 2025 through 2027 seasons. Lucrative deals aside, here’s a look at Newey’s seven best automotive designs that helped make him such a Formula 1 icon.
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1985 March 85C
Image Credit: ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images During his IndyCar career, Newey hit a grand slam right off the bat with the March 85C. Built to include either a turbocharged Buick Indy V-6 engine or a Ford-Cosworth DFX V-8 turbo mill, Newey’s March 85C was piloted by the likes of Al Unser, who won the 1985 IndyCar Championship. Racer Danny Sullivan (seen here) also piloted a March 85C during his famous “spin and win” at the 1985 Indy 500. In total, the March 85C finished first in 10 of its 15 races that year.
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1992 Williams FW14B
Image Credit: Pascal Rondeau/Allsport/Getty Images Newey graduated to Formula 1 shortly after his IndyCar success, though a few years of misses led to his firing. Reportedly, Newey left behind his designs for a successor, which were filed in the trash. What a mistake that turned out to be. Newey joined Williams’ Formula 1 team and implemented his ideas for the FW14, which was a tour de force.
In 1992, the FW14B was Nigel Mansell’s steed when he won the Formula 1 championship, and Williams won the World Constructors’ Championship, too. The key was Newey’s active suspension, which aided in better cornering stability and drag reduction on the straights.
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1996 Williams FW18
Image Credit: National Motor Museum/Heritage Images/Getty Images This chassis had a 75 percent win rate, with Williams taking the top spot on the podium 12 times out of the season’s 16 races. Damon Hill piloted the V-10-powered FW18 to a Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship, and teammate Jacques Villeneuve finished second. Again, Williams claimed the World Constructors’ Championship. How? Newey revised the cockpit to recline the driver more, which lowered the car’s center of gravity and helped bolster its aerodynamic acumen.
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1998 McLaren MP4/13
Image Credit: Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images Newey left Williams after disagreements with management about ownership shares and driver selection and headed to McLaren. His MP4/13, the first chassis he designed for the British team, achieved a 56 percent win rate. That was enough for McLaren’s Mika Häkkinen to clinch the championship title and for teammate David Coulthard to finish third.
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2010 Red Bull RB6
Image Credit: Darren Heath/Getty Images Moving to Red Bull’s team in 2006, Newey weathered four initial years that were a bit of a struggle. In 2010, though, he debuted the RB6. Its predecessor, the RB5, had been the quickest car at the end of the 2009 season, taking first in the final three races.
For the 2010 season, Newey stretched the back of the chassis to accommodate a double diffuser (to increase downforce) while adding a contested-but-legal front wing. The RB6 won nine of the season’s 18 races, earning Sebastian Vettel the World Drivers’ Championship and Red Bull the World Constructors’ title, ending Newey’s 11-year dry spell.
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2023 Red Bull RB19
Image Credit: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images In 2022, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez achieved a staggering 77.3 percent win rate in Newey’s RB19, which was his most successful car ever. Until 2023. Newey’s innovation for last season was adding two tunnels to the floor of the car to channel airflow to the diffuser.
The monumental downforce meant the car was unflappable, and the RB19 won 21 of 22 grand prix races, an overwhelming 95.45 percent win rate. That figure bested that of the most-winning car prior, the 1988 McLaren MP4/4, which had 93.8 percent rate of success.
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Aston Martin Valkyrie (AM-RB 001)
Image Credit: Martyn Lucy/Getty Images This isn’t technically a race car, but it basically is, so we’re including it. (There will be a track version of the Valkyrie running in the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans.) Newey longed to design the ultimate road car and, over a meal with Horner and then-Aston CEO Andy Palmer, helped develop a plan to create the Valkyrie. This $3 million, 1,139 hp beast has a Cosworth 6.5-liter V-12 that redlines at 11,100 rpm. The vehicle also generates 2,425 pounds of downforce from 137 mph on (it maxes out at 220 mph). For reference, a modern Formula 1 car generates 1,653 pounds of downforce.
Aston Martin’s Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso bought one, remarking that he’s excited to have a Newey-designed vehicle in his garage. The former Formula 1 world champion famously quipped: “I’d hoped for an employee discount. There was no discount!”
Authors
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Sean Evans
