Why Adrian Newey is the BEST and WORST thing to happen to F1

Adrian Newey has won 25 world championships (and counting) in his astonishing Formula 1 career, including 12 constructors' championships.

The Red Bull engineering mastermind can add another constructors' title to his CV this year before leaving the Milton Keynes squad in the first quarter of the 2025 season, and Max Verstappen is likely to also take Newey's total amount of championships up to 27.

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To put things into perspective, if Newey were a constructor himself, he would be the second-most successful one in F1's long history, with only Ferrari winning more titles – albeit in twice as many years.

While Newey exemplifies the phrase 'success breeds success', he is also to blame for some of the sport's dullest periods, and there is fear that we are rapidly descending into one right now, if not there already.

Scroll through any social media site for F1 comments after a race in the last 12 months, and you will read plenty of concerned comments from fans thinking Verstappen and Red Bull's dominance is boring.

If that's you, I have some bad news: dominating is the aim of the sport, and Newey is one of the best at doing it. If not the best ever.

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Who is Adrian Newey?

The name of this brilliant engineer will only be familiar to F1 fans, while remaining an unknown quantity to the wider world. But make no mistake, he might well have been the most important man in the sport for the past 30 years.

F1 has turned many names into legends in its 73-year history. Juan Manuel Fangio, Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, and Lewis Hamilton will live on in popular culture for the rest of time, thanks to their astonishing accomplishments in winning multiple world championships.

However, Newey has outscored them all, and we should view that level of talent and ingenuity for car design as one of the best things to come from our sport.

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Verstappen's 2021 drivers' championship ended a seven-year drought of Newey-designed cars not taking the sport's ultimate crown. The 2022 and 2023 follow-ups with the constructors' title represented a real turn of the tide, and it is not the first time the 65-year-old engineer has changed the course of F1 history.

Newey and an amazing story of achievement

In 1992, after four years of McLaren controlling the sport thanks to Ayrton Senna and, to a lesser degree, Alain Prost, Williams surged to the fore with Newey and Patrick Head becoming the dominant design duo. The 90s-era Williams was a force unlike anything F1 had seen, and Newey was instrumental in that.

And yet, as impressive as the partnership with Head was, it did not generate must- see racing as Williams strolled to five championships in six seasons. The Grove team won three of those championships with four rounds to spare; think about how 'fun' it was watching Mercedes celebrate their championships as early as Russia and Japan, and you start to get the picture.

Newey outgrew Williams when he couldn't rise to head technical director level, so he joined McLaren as their new technical director to design their 1998 car.

If you thought Red Bull's Bahrain 1-2 victory with a 38.5-second gap didn't make for edge-of-your-seat viewing last season, the debut of Newey's MP4/13 saw McLaren drivers Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard lap the entire field in 1998's season-opening race.

McLaren's Newey-designed cars took two consecutive world constructors' championship wins in 1998 and 1999, and coincidentally (or not), Williams hasn't won a championship since Newey left them.

Nurturing Red Bull to the top

A relative downturn for Newey's mounting haul of trophies and championships coincided with Ferrari and Michael Schumacher dominating the sport in the early 2000s, but it also represented the start of his Red Bull relationship.

The new team formed in the ashes of Jaguar's brief F1 run recognised the potential that bringing Newey on board would have, and by 2010, that fruit blossomed, with Red Bull claiming both championships and 15 of 19 pole positions. That record improved to 18 of 19 poles in 2011.

As impressive a feat as it was for Sebastian Vettel to win nine races in a row in 2013, I can assure you that not seeing another driver win in the entirety of the second half of the season was awful to watch. F1's drop in viewership at the time demonstrates that.

Racing fans were thankful to see a different team take to the top in 2014, but that became the start of the Mercedes era, and what a very long turn that was.

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So, yes, Adrian Newey's 2021 RB16B was a welcome relief to challenge Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton's seven-year untouchable status.

F1 thrilled a new generation of fans buoyed by a once-in-a-blue-moon 2021 championship, which Newey played a central role in delivering.

But since that moment, Red Bull has enjoyed a dominant period fuelled by Newey's engineering genius and Verstappen's talent behind the wheel.

In 2022, they finally shattered Mercedes' eight-year reign, clinching both the drivers' and constructors' championships.

2023 proved to be Red Bull's most successful season yet. They secured their second consecutive constructors' title with a record-breaking 860 points.

Verstappen claimed his third consecutive drivers' title with a record 19 wins in 22 races, while Sergio Perez, with two wins and 285 points, secured second place, giving Red Bull their first-ever one-two championship finish.

However, this era of dominance appears to be nearing its end after the Milton Keynes outfit announced Newey's departure at the beginning of the 2025 season.

Reports also suggest Newey won't face gardening leave, allowing him to join a competitor as soon as 2025.

While joining a new team in 2025 wouldn't affect their car for that season, his expertise would be instrumental in shaping their 2026 challenger, a pivotal year with the sport's new regulations coming into play.

Now the question is - could we be about to witness a new era of dominance for another team, spearheaded by the brilliance of Adrian Newey? Only time will tell.

READ MORE: Adrian Newey: The real F1 MVP and genius behind Red Bull domination

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