How to Build a Car: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer

by Adrian Newey

He was of the now slightly old-school approach that the more one can understand technically about a car, the more it will help one understand how to drive and feed back on it to the engineers, which is such a key attribute for any driver. He had a boyish enthusiasm. A desire to learn. It was definitely one of the qualities that made him so great. Then, of course, there was his driving. As a driver, he seemed to be able to make the car do things others simply couldn’t. He first got noticed in Formula One in 1983 during the turbo era, when he developed a very special driving technique in which he would be on the throttle and the brake at the same time. This was in the days before the flappy paddle, of course. You still had a conventional clutch pedal and gear lever. Ayrton’s technique was to be on and off both throttle and brake throughout the corner in order to keep the turbo spooled up, so when he needed the power at the corner exit the turbo was already producing the requisite boost.