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

by Adrian Newey

Now, to me, what makes Formula One unique compared to other top-level sports is the fact that it’s not just the sportsmen – it’s the sportsmen and the car, man and machine, the technology, the battle of the car-cum-sportsman who’s driving it. And for that reason I think it’s so important that we maintain technical differentiation between the cars, and within the car the engine should not become the dominant differentiator among the top teams. I also think the sport has lost some of its spectacle. These hybrid engines sound flat, they don’t sound exciting. The sound of a normally aspirated V10 made the hair on your skin stand up. People who came to the circuit for the first time tingled with excitement at the noise the cars made. The noise is a very important element that’s been lost, to the point that the support GP2 race, for instance, sounds far more exciting than the Formula One race, which is wrong. You watch the on-board cameras and there’s a distinct lack of drama. Contrast a pole lap from Hamilton in 2016 with Ayrton’s Monaco qualifying lap from 1988 (check it out, it’s worth watching). You watch Ayrton manhandling that car around Monaco; it looks brutal and you think, That’s amazing; I could never in a million years do that. You watch a qualifying lap now for pole position, and though you’d be mistaken of course, you might well sit there and think, Yes, with a bit of practice, I could do that. In this sense, it’s lost its magic. The sportsman is no longer the gladi...