To understand why Ferrari has been waiting to get Adrian Newey for almost forty years. And why she would be willing to make an unprecedented investment, just ask the pilots she has worked with. “Definitely yes, it’s worth it, because he is the champion of engineers.” It is the response of Riccardo Patrese who in 1991 in Mexico City took one of his cars, the Williams FW14, to victory for the first time. “If Adrian comes we win”, he continues. “We just need to understand if he really comes, because I know him well, we are friends, in my years at Williams we have built an excellent relationship, and I know that he is very happy at home, he loves being in England. So I don’t know: that he leaves Red Bull and that he could join Ferrari, I’m reading about it in the newspapers. I would be very happy about it, so I would go and see him more often. And also because he is aerodynamics: where he puts his hands he wins.” That it is Patrese who pays him such a certificate of esteem is particularly significant, because he met him when he was still at the beginning of his career. Since that first success in Mexico have come 23 world titles and an unparalleled experience. Which certainly isn’t just about aerodynamics. As one of its many world champions, Damon Hill, explains. “People always say that he is the wizard of aerodynamics, and indeed yes, he is: but his great ability is to understand the whole package. He has expertise on the suspension, on the engine and above all on the driver. His he is good at evaluating the whole and knows that only by considering everything can the best result be achieved.”
Non-robot pilots
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Newey is exceptional because he has a sensitivity that no one else has. Sensitivity to all aspects of performance. And which, say those who know him well, is no different from what he demonstrates in life, outside of racing. “Adrian Newey is an extraordinary person”, says Hill who won the title with him in 1996, again with Williams. “I like him a lot because he took care of me during my championship in 1996. We went through a lot together after the Senna Imola tragedy. And ultimately what makes him unique is his attention, he has a careful and in-depth vision of what it means to be a man driving a car.” Not exactly the image and skills he associates with an engineer. As anyone who sees him in the garage or in the pitlane immediately understands, perhaps while he is crouched down looking at the bottom of a single-seater or when he is writing notes or sketching out some ideas in his trusty notebook.
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not just data
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The driver’s needs are always at the center. “That’s exactly where his exceptional nature lies,” confirms Jacques Villeneuve. “My experience with him was limited, but I know that he loves talking to the pilots, he wants to know their sensations, he wants to understand: he is always aware that it is never just a question of data, of numbers. He knows that the pilot is not a robot and takes it into account in its considerations and in the solutions it is able to find”. Villeneuve is a deferred “Newey world champion”, in the sense that he won the title in 1997, in a car he designed, but when the Genie had already left. He worked with him for just one year, in 1996. “And not even that much, because Newey was dealing mostly with Damon (Hill; ed.), but even in that little time I realized his ability to try to always find solutions, not necessarily in reference to the data, but also to our sensations, to the indications. Then the following year he left.” Leaving him the car with which Jacques beat Michael Schumacher and became champion.
