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[Apollo]

Is anybody else tired of the F1 industry and F1 media lauding Newey as some sort of demigod? You could be forgiven for thinking that he walks on water.
I appreciate that he's a fine designer, one of the best but is he the be all and end all? No. The media seem to have forgotten some of the god awful cars he has made, he's made more bad cars than good. His cars have also been driven and won championships/races with some of the best drivers F1 has seen (Senna, Prost, Hakkinen, Vettel) and it does these drivers a disservice to put all of the success on Newey.

Indeed, he had a dry run of over 12yrs with no championships before he struck lucky with RBR. Other great designers who have produced formidable cars such as Rory Byrne and Bob Bell seem to be somehow eclipsed by the cult of Newey. I'd go so far as to say that in terms of design Rory Byrne is vastly superior to the very inflexible Newey.


What say you, tired of the Newey show too?

[en8wall]

There does seem to be a circus that follows him now. Just needs other designers to bring out better cars.....

[killem2]

I wouldn't say he stuck lucky with red bull, its not like the moment he and red bull came together its been nothing but championships, they have been together for a while now.

I am not going to fault the guy for being good at his job. If anything, I blame all the other teams for not doing more for that area. They have driver programs where they nurse these kids into hard core f1 drivers, but do they have an academy dedicated to learning about the inside and outs of aerodynamics and other parts of the car? Like an academy that would take kids right out of high school or work with them while they are in highschool to begin a road like that so they can create their won adrian neweys?

[zurich_allan]

Newey designed cars have won 127 races since 1991 in F1, another 200+ podiums, and that's not even taking into account his success and championship winning cars in the US before he even came to F1. Not forgetting that aside from the very top racers mentioned, others that won multiple races or championships in his cars include Patrese, Villeneuve, Hill, Coulthard, Frenzen and Montoya. He might not be a God (obviously not), but his prolonged success (or whatever you want to call that many wins and podiums with that many drivers and more over more than two decades) deserves a lot of recognition and praise. You simply can't forget too that the substantial period of time without championships also included the five years where Ferrari and Schumacher were almost utterly dominant in the first of those years - yet cars he designed nearly did break that dominance twice. Then the later years included his move to Red Bull when he had to effectively start from scratch and build up for a couple of years.

There can't be much debate I'm afraid - the two most effective designers that stand head and shoulders above all others over the past two decades are Newey and Brawn, and based on the number of years and wins, Newey is pretty much inarguably at the top.

[hanns]

the two most effective designers that stand head and shoulders above all others over the past two decades are Newey and Brawn

You obviously mean Newey and Rory Byrne. Byrne designed the ferraris that dominated from 1999 to 2004.

[zurich_allan]

the two most effective designers that stand head and shoulders above all others over the past two decades are Newey and Brawn

You obviously mean Newey and Rory Byrne.

Ah, you're quite right of course! I'd just been reading something about Ross Brawn and typed his name by accident!! Cheers.

[Cai]

I'm also getting a bit sick of the media claiming Newey is the greatest designer of all time
To be fair he has won 8 constructor's tittles across 3 teams (Williams: 5, McLaren: 1, Red Bull: 2), but personally I'm more impressed by Colin Chapman's 7 constructor's tittles at Team Lotus!

[myownalias]

Adrian Newey is a genius with pencil and paper, designing a number of F1 cars for a number of teams that dominated the sport, I think he deserves the plaudits he has received!

As for claims of him being the best designer of all time, like the best driver of all time, or the best team of all time, it's all very subjective, on paper Michael Schumacher is the best driver of all time, but some consider Juan Manuel Fangio or Ayrton Senna the best driver of all time.

[What's Burning?]

I think we have to understand that to compare F1 today with F1 of 20 years ago is apples and oranges. The emphasis at this point is on aerodynamics because the regulations have dictated that direction but also because the reliability of cars is such a quantum leap ahead of where is was 20 years ago. So the strengths of Newey are being magnified but teams are far more than one man.

[Apollo]

I wouldn't say he stuck lucky with red bull, its not like the moment he and red bull came together its been nothing but championships, they have been together for a while now.

I am not going to fault the guy for being good at his job. If anything, I blame all the other teams for not doing more for that area. They have driver programs where they nurse these kids into hard core f1 drivers, but do they have an academy dedicated to learning about the inside and outs of aerodynamics and other parts of the car? Like an academy that would take kids right out of high school or work with them while they are in highschool to begin a road like that so they can create their won adrian neweys?

See that's the problem - just because the other teams don't have Newey you write them off as lacking. Not true though - McLaren last year produced a car which by the end of the season was faster than the RBR, if they had not been caught short by that exotic materials ban for the so called octopus exhaust solution then they would have been a match for RBR right from the get go. There was not a huge difference in performance between RBR and McLaren last season - RBR dominated because of Vettel, not because of Newey. That's what I'm getting at - people seriously overstate Newey's ability and contribution, he's not the be all and end all.

So in 2010 the RBR wasn't the fastest car on the grid, it alternated between three teams and in 2011 their car wouldn't have been the best if not for a McLaren faux pas pre season - that doesn't scream amazing dominating performance to me....not like say the F2004 for example.

As for F1 teams investing in future designers - they do, many have associations with University programmes and there are designers in F1 who have won championships - you discredit them I think.

[myownalias]

RBR dominated because of Vettel, not because of Newey. That's what I'm getting at - people seriously overstate Newey's ability and contribution, he's not the be all and end all.

Newey (and his engineering/manufacturing team) is a big part of Vettel being able to claim so many wins off the bat, Vettel did not make the car faster than it's design! We'll never know whether the McLaren would have been quicker or equal to the RB7; testing performance is no indicator of pace come the start of the season plus Red Bull already had a great base to build on!

[Apollo]

RBR dominated because of Vettel, not because of Newey. That's what I'm getting at - people seriously overstate Newey's ability and contribution, he's not the be all and end all.

Newey (and his engineering/manufacturing team) is a big part of Vettel being able to claim so many wins off the bat, Vettel did not make the car faster than it's design! We'll never know whether the McLaren would have been quicker or equal to the RB7; testing performance is no indicator of pace come the start of the season plus Red Bull already had a great base to build on!

Well I say compare team mates - I know Vettel is a better driver than Webber but if the RBR had been as dominant as it seemed in Vettels hand then Webber would have performed much better than he did. Not only was he dominated by his team mate he was also beaten by a rival, albeit relatively closely. To me that marks Vettel as the reason behind the RBR dominance. RBR gave him a car to win with, but it was he who extracted out of it performance which others could not, as indicated by Webber.
Even in 2004 Schumacher didn't dominate Barrichello like Vettel did to Webber. The RBR was good but as I've said, on a lot of tracks the McLaren had better pace.

[myownalias]

RBR dominated because of Vettel, not because of Newey. That's what I'm getting at - people seriously overstate Newey's ability and contribution, he's not the be all and end all.

Newey (and his engineering/manufacturing team) is a big part of Vettel being able to claim so many wins off the bat, Vettel did not make the car faster than it's design! We'll never know whether the McLaren would have been quicker or equal to the RB7; testing performance is no indicator of pace come the start of the season plus Red Bull already had a great base to build on!

Well I say compare team mates - I know Vettel is a better driver than Webber but if the RBR had been as dominant as it seemed in Vettels hand then Webber would have performed much better than he did. Not only was he dominated by his team mate he was also beaten by a rival, albeit relatively closely. To me that marks Vettel as the reason behind the RBR dominance. RBR gave him a car to win with, but it was he who extracted out of it performance which others could not, as indicated by Webber.
Even in 2004 Schumacher didn't dominate Barrichello like Vettel did to Webber. The RBR was good but as I've said, on a lot of tracks the McLaren had better pace.

Yes, that is true, but you also have to factor in the numerous car issues that Webber had, for much of the season, Webber suffered from KERS failures, which is supposedly worth 0.3 secs per lap, Vettel's machine ran fine much of the time. Newey's no compromise approach was one of his biggest failures last season because he wanted a much smaller KERS system, Red Bull struggled with reliability of the system, which seemed to manifest itself in Webber's car more often than not! And Webber also had a harder time acclimatising to the Pirelli rubber!

Newey like Rory Byrne fairly consistently create fast cars that wins championships, I believe both designers deserve the plaudits they receive and it raises the bar for other designers.

[killem2]

I wouldn't say he stuck lucky with red bull, its not like the moment he and red bull came together its been nothing but championships, they have been together for a while now.

I am not going to fault the guy for being good at his job. If anything, I blame all the other teams for not doing more for that area. They have driver programs where they nurse these kids into hard core f1 drivers, but do they have an academy dedicated to learning about the inside and outs of aerodynamics and other parts of the car? Like an academy that would take kids right out of high school or work with them while they are in highschool to begin a road like that so they can create their won adrian neweys?

See that's the problem - just because the other teams don't have Newey you write them off as lacking. Not true though - McLaren last year produced a car which by the end of the season was faster than the RBR, if they had not been caught short by that exotic materials ban for the so called octopus exhaust solution then they would have been a match for RBR right from the get go. There was not a huge difference in performance between RBR and McLaren last season - RBR dominated because of Vettel, not because of Newey. That's what I'm getting at - people seriously overstate Newey's ability and contribution, he's not the be all and end all.

So in 2010 the RBR wasn't the fastest car on the grid, it alternated between three teams and in 2011 their car wouldn't have been the best if not for a McLaren faux pas pre season - that doesn't scream amazing dominating performance to me....not like say the F2004 for example.

As for F1 teams investing in future designers - they do, many have associations with University programmes and there are designers in F1 who have won championships - you discredit them I think.

I'm not discrediting anyone on purpose, the topic is about adrian newey, and I assume the question of his success. If there was anyone as successful as he, and came from the grassroots of a university (is this = to high school? I'm in america so University means college but I dunno lol i've heard it both ways), then their name should pop out fairly easy.

I don't claim to know who is the best, nor do engineers or anything other than the drivers and maybe the team principals/owners really spark any interest in me to really talk about it. So over all, I would say I'm one of the best opinions to have in a thread, because I don't really have any particular team that I like in that regard. I really enjoy button/lewis as the driver side, and I kind like Christian Horner and Mike Glascoe as principals, but as far as designers, if you asked me right now who designs mcclaren f1 cars, I couldn't tell you lol.

[LewEngBridewell]

Newey has produced the odd duff car every now and then though, that is true. Even the best are prone to some wobbly moments. In fact, Newey should be due a wobbly moment in a season or two...