From paper to paddock: How F1’s Adrian Newey designs title-winning racecars
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Newey in the pits with his signature notebook
© Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
You’ve said that by the age of six, you knew you wanted to be a racecar engineer. Were you one of those students constantly doodling in your notebooks?
I’m afraid I was, particularly in the subjects that didn’t interest me. My crowning academic achievement was [failing to attain a qualification] in French because I spent my whole time sketching, doodling racing cars, et cetera.
In your work today, is your process still drawing with pencil on paper?
I’m kind of the last dinosaur in Formula One that’s still using a drawing board; but for me, it’s what I grew up on, so it’s like my first language. If I went to a CAD system, I feel like it would always be my second language. I wouldn’t be able to work as freely and easily.
Newey, Max Verstappen and Christian Horner celebrate a win in France
© Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
How would you describe what you do? Do you see yourself as a designer or an engineer?
There’s definitely a blend. Design is a very broad term. In automotive – the road car industry – design is the styling of the car, it’s not the engineering. And what they would call the engineering, we in racing would call the design: design engineering. So if someone asked my job description, I would say I am a design engineer. Which I think is trying to mix the creative with the engineering discipline.
So while a car like the team’s current RB19 looks amazing...
Anything we do on the race car, ultimately it’s not for aesthetics. The sketches, the ideas, however they start, the end goal has to be something that makes the car go faster. We have an ultimate master: the stopwatch. Which perhaps differentiates what we do from all the types of general design.
Oracle Red Bull Racing’s car for 2023, the RB19
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Can you break down your process? Is it a matter of letting your mind wander and seeing what comes out?
The way I tend to work is I have a particular problem I’m trying to solve. And I’ll start tumbling it over in my mind. Then I’ll start sketching and doodling. Once I’ve got it down, I use the rubber [an eraser] more or less as much as I use the pencil. Because once you start to lay it out as a proper sketch, you realize things don’t fit or they could be done differently. So I keep iterating – often quite a few times, with the rubber at hand – and develop it.
Then what?
I might leave my sketches for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks. Because the mind is an amazing thing. I find that the subconscious keeps ticking away at a problem, and then suddenly, in the shower or whatever, an idea pops up. So then I sketch a bit more. Once I’ve done it freehand and I’m happy with the basic concept or idea, I’ll take it to the drawing board and start drawing it as a proper engineering drawing.
And these engineering drawings help you communicate with the rest of the team?
Right. I’m one of a large bunch of very talented engineers here – we all work together. I am a bit of a maverick within the organization, so get involved in what I feel I might be able to bring some fresh ideas or emphasis to, and once I do, it’s the same process I just described. Then when I’ve got it as far as I can without further research, there are two or three people who will take my pencil engineering drawings and put them onto the CAD system.
Newey puts pencil to paper in an engineering drawing
© Thomas Butler/Red Bull Content Pool
What’s it like to see the ideas from your drawings become reality?
It is very satisfying. I think for all the guys here, when the designs or thoughts on the car that they’ve been responsible for eventually take shape, it’s a great feeling.
After all these years in motorsport, you’re still innovating. What do you think is key to finding fresh inspiration?
Observation, and curiosity about what’s around you. I think it’s always important to have your eyes open, to look around. Sometimes inspiration can come literally from being in an airport, looking at aircraft and thinking, 'That’s an interesting feature.' Or it can even be something like a suspension bridge – all sorts of things. I think it’s just being curious. Curiosity naturally leads to observation.
Newey has always enjoyed doodling and sketching
© Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
It’s always important to have your eyes open, to look around
Formula One keeps you on the road, but do you doodle or otherwise follow creative pursuits in your spare time?
Time is a problem, but I very occasionally pick up a paintbrush, and when I do, I enjoy it. My mother was a keen hobby artist, as were both my grandmothers, and my brother is semi-professional so that artistic strain clearly runs in the family.
For someone who wants to get better at doodling or drawing racecars, do you have any tips?
I think the first one is curiosity that we spoke about – curiosity and observation. Look at other cars that exist, be it Formula One or whatever the area of interest. And perhaps question, 'Why are they doing that? What are they doing?' Sketch them as well as your own.
Obviously, when you doodle sketch, you’re doing it on a flat sheet of paper. Cars, and just about any objects, are three-dimensional. So ultimately, whilst putting it down in 2D, you’ve got to try to visualize it in 3D. Usually, I will do more than one view – say, a side view and a rear view, or something like that. That way I know it has a chance of working as a three-dimensional object.
Any final tips?
Practice your sketching ability, because that’s important. There’s a theory that if you want to become an expert at something, you should do 1,000 hours, and ideally from a young age. So for those who are younger, the more you practice, the better you’ll get. But doodling or sketching is a great thing to do from any age.
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