But as McLaren’s former head of vehicle design, Matthew Jeffreys, said, he recently told F1.com: “Adrian goes to the nth degree to get the most out of every area of the car. In doing so, it pushed us into areas that were a little bit outside of our comfort zone, so it made us consider and do things that we wouldn’t necessarily consider doing.”
red bull
In the mid-2000s, Newey felt the time was right for a new challenge. Rather than opt for another established team, his next move would be a new one as he joined Red Bull as Technical Director – former Williams and McLaren driver Coulthard and boss Christian Horner played their part in luring him to a team that didn’t. had won. a single Grand Prix in its current form.
According to McLaren, Newey arrived unable to influence the car he had just completed, the 2006-spec RB2, meaning that 2007 and 2008 would bring the first designs from his drawing board. Through relatively stable rules, they achieved an increasingly steady stream of points, as well as the occasional podium, but the front of the field still seemed a long way off.
That was until 2009, when revised regulations (covering a ban on most aerodynamic devices beyond the front and rear wings, changes to front and rear wing parameters, and the return of slick tires) introduced a golden opportunity to cause a surprise.
That year there was good and bad news for Red Bull. On the one hand, they increased the order to achieve their first pole positions and race victories. On the other hand, a rival team had one more ace up its sleeve in Brawn GP and its dual diffuser innovation, a variation of which Williams and Toyota had also designed.