Red Bull star designer Adrian Newey has been given one of the team’s 2009 cars.
He was presented with the RB5 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed today. He drove the car up the hill today and will drive it again tomorrow.
He joined Red Bull in 2006. The RB5 scored the team’s first F1 win at Shanghai last year and Sebastian Vettel’s win at Valencia was the team’s tenth victory.
Newey said:
I?óÔé¼Ôäóm overcome actually. The guys have obviously put a tremendous amount of effort into preparing the car for me. You can see it ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ the paint and the lines are absolutely perfect, the work that?óÔé¼Ôäós gone into doing the helmet and everything else is incredible. Also, the fact that the guys have given up a weekend to come down here and run it for me is fantastic.
I was nervous before my first run, as I?óÔé¼Ôäód never driven a car with a hand clutch before and had never left-foot braked expect in a go-kart ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ but it?óÔé¼Ôäós really fantastic to drive. A slight fright was that I wasn?óÔé¼Ôäót prepared for how long first gear is, so as I was pulling out of the paddock it was pushing me on a lot. I was saying to myself ?óÔé¼?£hand clutch, hand clutch?óÔé¼Ôäó, but the automatic reaction is to go for the left foot! We went up the hill on wet tyres, so it was a gentle drive. It?óÔé¼Ôäós just so great to be in the car and it?óÔé¼Ôäós such a great noise from the inside.
The plan now is to club together with some other guys I know who are lucky enough to have cars and hire a circuit, preferably a modern one with a bit of run off where I can enjoy driving the car without worrying about having a spin in front of a crowd!
Adrian Newey
Goodwood Festival of Speed
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Scribe (@scribe)
2nd July 2010, 17:23
Awesome, imagine driving something that you’d built an it was as amazing as the RB5. A shame the way that F1 is now that Brabhams and McLarens just arn’t possible. Still you can’t have everything.
Wonder how good Newey’s times are.
Ilanin
2nd July 2010, 17:33
Well, his performance at Le Mans in 2007 (4th in GT2 with Joe Macari and Ben Aucott in a Ferrari F430) indicates that Newey is not entirely slow, though I don’t think he’s got much form in single-seater open wheel racing.
matt90
2nd July 2010, 20:37
F1 cars don’t set times at Goodwood if that’s what you mean.
Hamish
2nd July 2010, 22:32
Not entirely correct:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYY-WkPnUbg
thespuditron (@thespuditron)
2nd July 2010, 17:23
Nice article Keith. This is a cool story!
I get the feeling reading this article that he is quite humbled. (By a car he designed!)
The man is, quite simply, a genius. He will go down as one of, if not, the greatest, designer who has ever lived.
Red Bull will only get stronger with Newey on their books.
Delighted for him. He deserves it.
Jim N
2nd July 2010, 18:26
He’s still got quite a way to go to match Colin Chapman for both inovation or success, but there is no doubt that he is an outstanding designer and thoroughly deserves such a gesture by Red Bull
Scribe (@scribe)
2nd July 2010, 23:22
I’m sure he’ll go down as a great, the premeinant designer of the 90’s certainly.
Murrary before him, Chapman before that, everyone always forgets Rory Byrne though, 6 Constructors championships on the spin, a double hatrick. Possibly the greatest design acheivment in grand prix history, domination, not just of 1 year but of 5 consecutive years.
Newey can create incredibly quick cars but they’re often cardboard rockets. Rory Byrne created the fastest cars of the 00’s with rock solid reliability to boot, year after year his cars were top. If you ask me they both qualify as all time greats but it’d be a foolish to ignore Byrne’s aceivments in a decade where Newey cars failed to deliver a single championship.
macahan
4th July 2010, 8:17
very befitting that the designer of the championship runner up car gets the car that gave what once was a backmarker team their first pole position and first race win and became championship runner up. Icing on the cake would be if his latest creation would bring them one or both championships this year. I bet if that happens he will not only have one F1 car in his garage but two I would hope because he would have deserved that. What makes it even better is that he didn’t expect this not like Jensen whom had a clause in his contract to get the championship winning BrawnGP car which he had to pull strings and had to start legal action to get the promissed car.
Awesome team, awesome designer. Wish them the best.
Katy
2nd July 2010, 17:26
Wow that’s so cool :) he deserves it!!
Oliver
2nd July 2010, 19:54
He is also being payed lots to deserve it.
Palle
2nd July 2010, 20:53
He is one of the big heroes of F1: Not to mention all the other people who are working to develop and improve the cars. He surely deserves a car like that. He has a unique understanding of the aerodynamics and design of a Formula one car in all phases of the race weekend. I hope he will gain further understanding from driving his RB5 and be able to do even better in the future.
US_Peter
2nd July 2010, 22:03
That’s pretty cool for him. Can’t imagine how foreign that would all feel. Sounds like he handled himself just fine…
BasCB (@bascb)
2nd July 2010, 22:12
Great gift (look at that Mercedes, give the d*mn car to Jenson right there at Goodwood and let him drive it!), really nice to have Newey so impressed by this.
Hare (@hare)
2nd July 2010, 22:40
Awesome! He deserves it!
I remembered a quote from an article called ‘the last dinosaur’, about Adrian Newey’s driving skills :
The guy is a L.E.G.E.N.D!! :)
US_Peter
3rd July 2010, 8:06
That’s classic!
wasiF1
3rd July 2010, 2:27
He deserves this present. BRAVO.
W154
3rd July 2010, 12:34
I’m afraid AN will have to improve his act to equal the exploits of some of the great designers of the past.
Rudi Uhlenhaut, the designer of the mighty pre-war and mid fifties Mercedes Benz racing cars (REAL FACTORY CARS) was not only a brilliant engineer/designer but also a very fast driver. He would often take a car out for a drive at a Grand Prix to see if any design changes were working OK. He could have driven in GP’s but the factory wouldn’t let him – he was too valuable as an engineer/designer to MB.
Colin Chapman was also a dab hand behind the wheel as well as the drawing board. There is a very famous photo of him blasting round the Hethel test track in the first Lotus 49 on the morning it was released to a stunned motor racing world- just making sure it was running ok before handing it over to Graham Hill!!
Being able to drive a racing car at racing speed and understanding what is happening is a real bonus for any car designer/engineer.
Patrickl
5th July 2010, 8:54
That’s the least they could do after the team threw away both championships in 2009 (and seem to be doing their best to throw it away again in 2010).
You could feel from interviews how sad Newey was that the team (and drivers) made so many errors in the first half of the season.