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

by Adrian Newey

Ultimately it was down to the designer to decide how strong to make the car versus how heavy to make it. If you did it in consultation with the drivers they would almost invariably say, ‘Make it heavier,’ and I do remember Bobby having a go at me when he felt that I hadn’t made the front-impact structure strong enough. The problem we have as a designer, of course, is that nobody thanks you for a slow, safe car. Back then I think I took the view that I had to try to make a sensible compromise; not do anything blatantly dangerous, but err towards performance over safety. It’s a horrible position to be in. Taking that decision away from the designer is one of the best things to happen to the sport.

So now I was – deep breath – race engineering Michael Andretti for the IndyCar races, flying back, driving to Heathrow to do the research and design for the 1987 car and going to the Formula One races to race engineer Patrick Tambay. As well as doing my best to keep my marriage together and be a good first-time father. It was all a bit ambitious really. Too ambitious in retrospect, and it contributed to what was my first – and, touch wood, only – creative block. I just couldn’t seem to come up with creative solutions on the Formula One car. I was starting to feel as if I was out of my depth, as though I was about to be rumbled for not being as good as everybody thought I was; a big fish in the smaller pond of Indy, but a minnow in the piranha tank of Formula One.

It’s all about trust and trust is a two-way street.

Even now, it’s funny how early success always stands out. I clearly remember walking through the airport in Mexico after that first win with Riccardo. I put that achievement right up there with my children being born. That’s a bit naughty of me, I suppose, but in my defence it was something my whole life had been leading up to, from the kid sketching on bits of paper, making models, right up to becoming the person responsible for the design of a racing car that’s won a Formula One championship. I remember thinking, This is one of the best days of my life.

Marigold said I was the most selfish person she knew. Two failed marriages – the one to her included – suggest she may have a point. It’s true that you can become so immersed in what you’re trying to achieve as a competitor that you risk tunnel vision, becoming thoughtless as a result and failing to consider the little things that make the people in your life happy and family life smoother. Even so, I prefer to think of myself as ‘absorbed’ rather than selfish. After all, I’m not thinking about myself, I’m thinking about product.

I have to say it would have sounded hideous to spectators, and would probably have been bad news for the sport, because the sound of an engine lapping at near-constant rpm is horrible compared to that generated by the gear changes and rising and falling rpm that we’re used to. I know from experience. We tested our CVT at Silverstone. Yes, it sounded horrible, but it’s not our job to ensure that the car sounds nice or smells good or looks pretty. We’re shark-like in our purity of purpose. We exist only to make the car go faster; the stopwatch is our master.

Ah, but Benetton said, ‘No, actually, it’s not a hole, it’s a series of stays and a bargeboard,’ which is a bit like saying that the bit in the middle of a Polo mint isn’t a hole, it’s just a place where there happens to be no mint. It seemed a weak argument that wouldn’t wash with the FIA. But it did wash with the FIA.

You question yourself. If you don’t, you’re a fool. The first thing you ask yourself is: Do I want to be involved in something where somebody can be killed as a result of a decision I have made? If you answer yes to that one, the second is: Do I accept that one of the design team for which I am responsible may make a mistake in the design of the car and the result of that mistake is that somebody may be killed? Prior to Imola, stupid as this may sound, I had never asked myself those questions.

People ask me if I feel guilty about Ayrton. I do. I was one of the senior officers in a team that designed a car in which a great man was killed. Regardless of whether that steering column caused the accident or not, there is no escaping the fact that it was a bad piece of design that should never have been allowed to get on the car. The system that Patrick and I had in place was inadequate; that cannot be disputed. Our lack of a safety-checking system within the design office was exposed.

What I feel the most guilt about, though, is not the possibility that steering column failure may have caused the accident, because I don’t think it did, but the fact that I screwed up the aerodynamics of the car. I messed up the transition from active suspension back to passive and designed a car that was aerodynamically unstable, in which Ayrton attempted to do things the car was not capable of doing. Whether he did or didn’t get a puncture, his taking the inside, faster-but-bumpier line in a car that was aerodynamically unstable would have made the car difficult to control, even for him. I think now, If only we’d had more time. By Imola, I understood the problem. I just needed time to develop the wind tunnel model and then the parts to go on the car, to give Ayrton a car that was worthy of him. Time denied us all that chance.

I will always feel a degree of responsibility for Ayrton’s death but not culpability.

At that point I wanted two things out of them. One was a bit more money. I’d taken a salary drop when I joined from Leyton House, and given that my design contribution had been key in three championship wins, I felt it was only right that there should be some financial recognition. I’ve never done the job for the money; I do it for the passion. Even so, we all have an ego, and one way of measuring your success is by how much you’re paid. If you can command decent money, then why not?

I think motor racing teaches you a lot of good life skills; it teaches you that if you want to achieve something, you have to work hard at it. Driving a racing car isn’t just about strutting about in overalls; it involves mental and physical preparation, training, working with the engineers, learning how to present and market yourself, how to deal with failure and move on from a bad race, and the self-analysis and determination that is vital for success in almost all walks of life.

In the meantime Marigold and I were firm that Harri’s schooling should come first, which put him at something of a disadvantage, for there is definitely a new breed of drivers who do the bare minimum in the way of academics in order to spend all their time at the track. To me that is a very high-risk strategy to adopt with your child: Lewis Hamilton is a shining example of this working, but for every success story associated with that route there are dozens of kids who reach 20 with no career and no education. Not only that, they have lost a normal childhood playing with children of their own age.

In fact, if you had to pick the single most important aerodynamic component on the car, you’d say the front wing; it’s there to create front downforce and the trick is building a front wing that generates that downforce while creating the minimum amount of disruption to the flow over the rest of the car. It’s not an easy problem and has become ever-more difficult as the regulations have become increasingly restrictive on the front wing itself, which is why, when you look at the cars today, the front wings have become such incredibly complex, intricate pieces. The front wing of a current Formula One car is a work of art really, a very complicated piece that not only creates downforce, but also creates a lot of vortical structures whose aim is to manage the flow around the front wheel and over the rest of the car.

I also introduced a culture that meetings should only be deemed a success if a clear set of ideas and actions came from them; they should not be used simply to read out reports that should have already been read prior to the meeting.

It all began with Dad. When I stand at my drawing board, inspired by a love of cars and the constant, ongoing desire to improve them, not just their speed and performance, but ultimately the way in which they move through the world, the impact they have – aesthetic, environmental, sporting enjoyment – it all comes back to him, his workshop and his eccentric love of tinkering with all things mechanical. That and my mum’s love of art and painting.

I must admit, I like the street circuits. I think they have more character than what you might call the ‘clean sheet of paper’ circuits that have cropped up in recent years. Those all feel very formulaic and lacking in character, but I guess that’s what you get when Bernie always uses the same architect to design them.

Anyway, we got to the Abu Dhabi airport, met Sebastian, whose big celebration was to treat himself to a McDonald’s – apparently he’d been craving one for the whole season, but his training didn’t allow it – then flew to Salzburg, back to Hangar 7, to be greeted by a brass band, a red carpet and a very, very happy Dietrich.

With 13 laps to go, Seb had fought back up to second place and now had Michael Schumacher ahead of him. I must admit, Christian and I were sitting on the wall thinking, Oh goodness, Michael’s going to make his car too wide and difficult for Sebastian to pass. This, after all, was Michael Schumacher: the old enemy. But blow me down, it was the exact opposite. Michael was a gentleman and moved to one side to let Seb past. He clearly did not want to hinder Seb in his championship aspirations.

Mandy grew up in South Africa, where she was a top-level swimmer, to the point that she won several national gold medals. In her early twenties she moved to Scotland as a coach for Scottish and British Swimming, specialising in coaching open-water swimmers and attending various international events in that capacity. That’s what’s so good about our relationship: having been a sportswoman herself, she understands competition, understands the sacrifices that are sometimes involved in competing at a high level. She knows that when I’m preoccupied and focused on my work, seemingly blinkered, it’s not because I’m being rude and thoughtless it’s because, if you’re going to compete at the top, you have to be that way sometimes. Well that’s my excuse anyway! But I can’t tell you how much I value that, and how helpful it is for our relationship.

Our purple era abruptly ended post-2013 when an engine regulation change moved us away from the normally aspirated V8s to turbocharged hybrid engines. It was something that Max, in his last years as FIA President, had pushed for. His logic was that if road car manufacturers involved in the sport were going to be spending hundreds of millions of pounds per year on engine development, it made sense to alter the regulations to make sure the research they’re doing is relevant to the general automotive industry, to further the development of the cars that we drive on the road every day and make them more fuel efficient, save the planet and so forth.

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.