Adrian Newey is one of the most successful designers in modern Formula 1, having achieved a total of 12 Constructors’ and 13 Drivers’ titles.
As a testament to his success, his car designs have achieved a total of 532 podiums and 220 Grand Prix wins. If he was his own Constructor in F1, he would have won more races than every single team in its history apart from Ferrari.
After studying aerodynamics and aeronautics at university in the late 70s, his ambitions were always to work in motor racing.
He was initially rejected by a lot of teams before a call came from Harvey Postlethwaite, who was chief of design at Fittipaldi. The team raced in sports cars and Newey worked on their March 83G GTP, which almost won the 1983 Daytona 24-hour race. It would go on to achieve success later in the 1983 season, before winning Daytona in 1984 with the Kreepy Krauly Racing team.
After a brief stint working in Indycar in the mid 80s, Newey’s F1 success story starts in 1988 when he joined the March/Leyton House team. Newey was signed up as technical director in 1990 and immediately achieved success with Ivan Capelli in the 881 by taking podiums at Spa and Estoril, and going on to achieve sixth in the Constructors’ battle.
Despite being fired from Leyton House at the end of the season due to a decline in results, Newey would go on to join Williams which would be the start of his impressive F1 career record.
Adrian Newey becomes chief designer under Patrick Head at Williams
In 1991 he joined Williams as chief designer under technical director Patrick Head, helping design the FW14 which would be driven by Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese.
Even though Mansell’s season was plagued by gearbox problems early on, he mounted a late challenge to Ayrton Senna and McLaren in the title race.
For 1992 things would change, with Mansell dominating the season in Newey’s FW14B which was the first car to use active suspension. Mansell took eight victories in the first 11 races, wrapping up the title at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
It is one of F1’s most dominant seasons and would be followed up by the FW15C, which expanded on the impressive technology with launch control, power steering, ABS, and power-assisted brakes.
The car enabled Alain Prost to take his fourth and final F1 title, before he left at the end of the 1993 season. In 1994 a lot of the driver aids were banned, which put the team more on par with their main rivals Benetton.
Williams signed Ayrton Senna, who came the end of his impressive tenure at McLaren, but it would go on to be a tragic end when four races into the season he was killed in a crash at Imola. Damon Hill would lead the team through its dark time in 1994, before going on to achieve a title in 1995.
Newey’s cars would go on to achieve titles in 1996 and 1997, but he wasn’t content with his current position within the team. He wanted more control over the driver lineup and to buy shares within the team, but owners Head and Frank Williams did not want to hand over more control.
When they got rid of Hill in favour of Heinz Harald Frentzen without consulting Newey in 1996, he had enough and left the team for McLaren, who made the designer a big money offer.
An unsuccessful tenure at McLaren does not end well for Adrian Newey
Joining McLaren in 1997, Newey set to work on optimising the MP4-12. Race wins for David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen brought early success, although McLaren still didn’t finish ahead of Newey’s own creation at Williams.
In the 1998 season, Newey spotted an opportunity to jump on the opposition. The MP4-13 proved to be an instant hit, allowing Hakkinen and Coulthard to dominate the Australian Grand Prix.
Hakkinen would become embroiled in a title battle with Ferrari’s Micheal Schumacher, but Hakkinen’s eight victories in the season would be enough to clinch the title. He would achieve the same success in 1999, winning both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles with McLaren, but this would be the final title success for Newey at McLaren.
Despite fighting for race wins, Newey’s cars lost out to Schumacher and the Ferrari team led by Jean Todt, and Newey’s main technical rivals Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne. Newey’s only failure would be the MP4-18 in 2003, which had a host of reliability problems including spectacular engine failures and overheating.
A version of the MP4-18 would race and win with Kimi Raikkonen at the 2004 Belgian Grand Prix, but Newey was starting to feel constrained by the autocratic leadership of Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh. This kickstarted the move to Red Bull and Newey’s next big success project.
Adrian Newey takes soft drinks company Red Bull to world champions
Christian Horner was F1’s youngest team boss when he took over the reins of Red Bull in 2005. Newey had a year left on his contract at McLaren and in 2006 he was signed to the team by Horner, who showed off Red Bull’s less corporate and rock ‘n’ roll outfit.
Newey’s Red Bull cars were good enough to challenge for wins in 2007 and 2008, but the big regulation change in 2009 presented a major opportunity for the team.
The RB5 would change everything for Red Bull, achieving their first win with Sebastian Vettel at the Chinese Grand Prix. The team would have won the title that year had it not been for the double diffuser used on the Brawn GP, but in 2010 they showed their true potential and kickstarted a run of impressive title victories with Vettel.
Each car between 2010 and 2013 was an iteration of RB5, with the RB6 in 2011 featuring a refined version of the blown diffuser which was first seen on the MP4-18. Newey and Red Bull would achieve four titles with Vettel at the wheel, taking the soft drinks company into the ‘big four’ teams in F1.
A difficult period would follow in 2014 due to the troubled Renault power units, leading to Red Bull splitting and joining up with Honda. It would be the 2021 season that would see title success again at Red Bull, only this time with Max Verstappen at the wheel.
Verstappen went toe-to-toe with Lewis Hamilton for the title in 2021, after Newey’s Red Bull perfected the ‘high-rake philosophy’ which brought them more performance on track. Spying another opportunity for 2022, Newey and his team worked on a concept for the ground effect cars.
The result was another instant hit, with Newey’s RB18 going on to be the only car not to suffer from porpoising, a result of him learning about ground effect cars early in his career. In 2023 the evolution of that car, the RB19, would go on to be the most successful of all time by taking 20 victories in 21 races.
That success would carry into 2024, but behind the scenes things were not happy at Milton Keynes. Horner was involved in an investigation involving a female colleague, which soured the atmosphere within the team.
Tensions grew between Newey and Horner, with the engineering guru eventually deciding to leave the team after the Miami Grand Prix after 18 years. Newey embarks on a new journey at Aston Martin for 2025 onwards, joining at technical partner where he is expected to produce something special for the planned regulation change in 2026.
What is Adrian Newey’s age? When was he born?
At the time of writing, Newey is 66 years old and was born on December 26, 1958.
Where was Adrian Newey born? What is his nationality?
Newey was born in Colchester, Essex and is natively British.
How tall is Adrian Newey? What is his height in feet?
At 1.7m, Newey measures 5 ft 7 in feet and inches.
Adrian Newey’s net worth
Thanks to him being one of the most successful car designers in Formula 1 history, Newey has a reported net worth of around $50 million (£39.7 billion).
What is Adrian Newey’s salary?
Newey’s salary at Aston Martin is reported to be $30 million (£23.8 million) per-year, his largest to date having previously been on $10 million (£7.8 million) per-year at Red Bull.
Is Adrian Newey married?
Newey is married to Amanda Newey. She is his third wife and the daughter of South African actor Ron Smerczak. Newey was previously married to Amanda in 1983 before seperating in 1989, and Marigold in 1992 before seperating in 2010.
