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

by Adrian Newey

I stalled it. Those carbon clutches are so aggressive. You have to give the engine about 5,500rpm, which is like trying to move off at the rev limit for a normal road car. Even then you’re barely touching the throttle.

I never really caught up with the maths – to this day, it’s my Achilles’ heel – I did manage to overcome the problem by memorising mathematical derivations parrot fashion. Put simply, I never understood them, but I knew how to fake them.

I’ve had one driver die in a car I’ve designed. Ayrton. That fact weighs heavily upon me, and while I’ve got many issues with the FIA and the way they have governed the sport over the years, I give them great credit for their contribution to improving safety in the sport.

my hand drawings are scanned and then turned into 3D surfaces on our computer system.

I stood on the pit wall at Portugal, watching the last corner during practice. Ivan came round and then, behind him, Prost, who was going really slowly. That was odd, I thought. It turned out Prost had seen Ivan go into the long, fast right-hand corner at a speed he thought was suicidal. He was so convinced there was going to be an accident that he lifted right off. ‘I cannot believe that car,’ is what I’m told he said on the radio.

Evolution is often the key once the spark of a good direction has been set.

I’d briefed both drivers to go easy on the fourth pedal – if we had sufficient pace not to need to use it, then please don’t. Unfortunately, going easy on the equipment doesn’t seem to translate into Finnish!

At Silverstone, Ferrari decided they couldn’t get their exhaust to work, so in typical fashion they decided to try to get ours banned.