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

by Adrian Newey

I liked Nigel. He’s a bit of a Marmite character, for sure, with a reputation as being a bore that was far from the truth. To be honest, the important tasks for a driver from my car-focused perspective are that he (a) gives good feedback on the car, and (b) drives it very fast around a series of tracks without making mistakes. And on both counts Nigel delivered. During pre-season testing, he’d given us valuable feedback on the car’s strengths and weaknesses, and I knew that by and large, when he was driving, he gave it everything. Other drivers, Alain Prost for example, would build up slowly, particularly in testing, never really stretching themselves or the car, so by the end of the day you’d be fretting, thinking, Oh God, this thing’s slow, when it was just that Alain wasn’t really extending himself. I guess in many ways that shows great self-confidence on Alain’s part, but for the team it was disconcerting. Nigel wasn’t like that. He was an attack dog in the car. When he drove it, you knew it was being bullied into submission. You knew he was giving his best when he was out in it.