The Secrets of Adrian Newey’s Top 5 Iconic Cars in F1 History

In total, the British aerodynamicist, arguably the greatest and most successful of all the greats in history – who includes Gordon Murray, John Barnard, Ross Bron and Rory Byrne – has won twelve World Constructors’ championships with his cars over these three decades with Williams, McLaren , RBR.

At the end of the season of the most dominant of them all, the Red Bull RB19, let’s take a look at the brilliant ideas and development process of five masterpieces by Adrian Newey, which have often set milestones in F1 design over the last 30 years :

1992 Williams FW14B-Renault

Adrian Newey’s first car to win the F1 championship was the spectacular Williams FW14B, which crowned Nigel Mansell champion in 1992. The Brit adapted the excellent 1991 FW14 toy with technical director Patrick Head’s innovative active suspension technology. Aerodynamically, it was the sequel to the groundbreaking March 881 that Newey had designed for 1988.

The FW14B was originally an intermediate prototype of the FW15, but it was so good that Williams used it in 1992. Its active suspension could hydraulically adjust the suspension height of each wheel, providing huge aerodynamic benefits. However, the biggest impact was a mechanism with which the driver switched off the diffuser at the push of a button on the straight and drastically reduced air resistance.

Powered by a Renault V10 engine and with a Head-developed semi-automatic gearbox, the FW18B was a car ahead of its time, taking 10 wins in 16 GPs that year – which would have been more had Ayrton You not been at his best – and raced the fastest lap of all 16.

1998 McLaren MP4/13 -Mercedes

The McLaren MP4/13 wasn’t a completely dominant car compared to Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari, but on the one hand it gave Mika Häkkinen his first of two consecutive titles, and on the other hand Newey managed to design it and make it a star in a very short space of time make a few months: After leaving Williams in November 1996, he started working as technical director at McLaren in August 1997.

From the outset, the McLaren MP4/13 implemented the flagship design philosophy of the new regulations introduced in 1998, which primarily made the cars narrower and brought back the sportiness of the tire grooves. One of the most important and decisive decisions was to increase the wheelbase, both because of the aerodynamic advantages it would offer and because of the innovative idea of ​​​​correlating the loads carried by the bias tires in each corner – namely the interaction of the front, inside – and rear tires outer tires each revolution.

To accommodate the introduction of grooved tires, Newey emphasized stability over peak performance and achieved this by lowering the center of gravity and lowering the positioning of the entire chassis.

At the beginning of 1997 he also developed an innovative steering-brake connection system that improved braking behavior: With an additional pedal, the driver could only brake one of the rear wheels and thus support directional stability when driving in. This system reportedly increased lap times by about half a second (!) and of course was soon banned. If it hadn’t been banned, Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard would have run every other weekend.

2011 Red Bull RB7 -Renault

The RB7 was the flagship of RBR’s first era of dominance in the sport (2010–13). Construction began on the basis of the RB5, which was created under the new design regulations of 2009, and then evolved from the dominant RB6.

Although Brawn GP won the F1 title in 2009 thanks to the innovative double diffuser invented by Ross Brawn, the RB5 was overall the best aerodynamic study of the new 2009 regulations. It just had to adopt the idea of ​​the double diffuser, which was not easy, but Newey did it in 2009.

In the 2010 RB6, the Brit increased the vehicle length to maximize the effect of the double diffuser. This was made possible by a redesign of the rear suspension, which placed the front forearm at a very wide angle from the wheel to its mount. Combined with the reduced width of the transmission, it brought enormous benefits in aerodynamic performance at the rear.

In terms of design philosophy, the RB6 introduced the high lean angle (the angle of the ground in relation to the asphalt where the height starts low at the nose and rises toward the rear) that would characterize all Red Bulls through 2021.

Combined with the suspensions, this design also allowed the nose to be placed fairly low to the ground – with huge benefits for aerodynamics and diffuser performance – without damaging the asphalt, even at high racing fuel loads. RBR was accused of achieving this by illegally bending various body parts, but the RB6 passed all relevant FIA tests.

Another innovation of the RB6 was the invention of the powerful exhaust flow in the diffuser, which Newey perfected in the RB7 of 2011: he achieved this by placing the tailpipes very low, inside the rear wheels, along with Renault’s clever engineering study that he Continues to send exhaust gases to the tailpipes with the same force, even if the driver takes their foot off the accelerator. The benefits were huge for rear stability when braking and entering corners.

In addition, the RB7 increased the lean angle even further and lowered the nose height further, while Newey wanted to place the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) batteries in the gearbox housing rather than in the space under the fuel tank. The resulting advantages in terms of layout and aerodynamics were far greater than the loss of around 40% of the battery’s energy due to overheating inside the box. The RB7 won 12 of the 19 GPs this season and its fiercest rival – McLaren – rarely had an answer to its dominance.

2013 Red Bull RB9 – Renault

The 2013 RB9 car was also the last regulations introduced in 2009 and was arguably at the peak of its development, winning 13 of the 19 GPs that season – including Sebastian Vettel’s record of 9 consecutive wins, the Max Verstappen only snapped this year.

Young people canoeingThe 2012 editions had hit two of the RB7’s big tricks: the dual diffuser was banned and a restriction on the lowest possible height of the exhaust tips was introduced. But Newey was undeterred, because when designing the 2012 RB8 he brought another aerodynamic phenomenon to the fore: the Coanda effect.

Put simply, this suggests that an airflow tends to adhere to and follow a curved surface. Newey designed the RB8’s internal side channels so that airflow extends from the front of the side vents to the diffuser at the rear.

It took RBR several months to put this idea into action, namely by redesigning the rear of the RB8 in the summer of 2023. Exhaust gases from the tailpipes – now at their highest point – helped to purge air from the top “vacuum” the area. surfaces of the side vents, and then the aerodynamic design directed that flow to the sides of the diffuser. There it encountered the ductal flow from the base of the lateral airways.

At the same time, a more reliable version of the KERS system was installed in the RB8, while in collaboration with Renault the impressive technology was developed that activates the engine’s respective internal cylinders at the entrance and in the middle of the corner and limited the flow of exhaust gases to increase the performance of the Increase external exhaust gases. This contributed significantly to the directionality and Vettel refined his driving style.

In the RB9 2013 all this was perfected, resulting in an absolutely dominant car: with a large lean angle that, despite its low nose height, generated enormous lift from the ground without touching the asphalt, with the exhaust system taking advantage of the airflow from the ducts at the front through the Coanda effect to create lift on the sides of the diffuser and with intelligent control of all rear vortices, among other features.

2023 Red Bull RB19 Honda

The Red Bull RB19 was the most dominant car in Formula 1 history. But as in previous years, it was the evolution of the 2022 RB18, designed around the biggest technical rule change in Formula 1 history: the transition to the modern era of the Ground effect since the 1970s, meaning the single seaters that generate most of their support from the ground.

Looking ahead to 2022, Newey was the only one of the designers who had experience from the first era of ground effect. Working for Fittipaldi in American IndyCars since the 80s. He was aware of the very critical correlation of ground effect aerodynamics with mechanical decisions, particularly suspension. So the design of the RB18 began with the posts.

In particular, the rear suspension had to have enough travel to meet the stability requirements of the aero platform, but at the same time it could not lead to drag problems caused by the rear wheel sinking at high speed and thus causing temporary and permanent stopping Air flows under the floor.

The RB18 wasn’t perfected at first, but became so in the spring of 2022 when RBR managed to contain its increased weight and move the weight distribution further back to limit its oversteer tendencies. But the plan has been perfected for 2023.

Due to its intelligent suspension, which controls the tilt of the nose when braking and the tail when accelerating, the RB19 can be placed much lower to the ground than the competition. In fact, it delivers tremendous lift in this way, especially over a wide range of medium and high speeds.

The RB19 thus reached the pinnacle of aerodynamic efficiency, i.e. the combination of strong lift in corners and reduced air resistance on straights. This was helped by the intelligent design of the DRS, which, through the interaction of the rear wing, the small center wing underneath and the ground, helps to compensate for wind resistance at high speed on the straight.

The RB19 won 21 of the 22 GPs in 23, and the only one it lost was Singapore because the asphalt in the Asian port did not allow it to set the ground clearance low enough for the whole aerodynamic concept to work.

The team faced a similar threat in Spa, but only on one corner: the legendary Eau Rouge. The aerodynamic vertical loads there propelled the car with such force that if it had the height required to complete the entire 5.5 kilometers of the remaining lap, it would have reached the ground. So Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were the only drivers who stepped on the gas in Eau Rouge and drove the best car of the season.