McLaren Star®
International
Presents:
"Adrian Newey Factfile"
A look at the career of F1's
hottest property
Born: 26th December 1948
1979 – Graduates from Southampton University
with a 1st Class Degree in aeronautics and astronautics.
1980 – Joins the Fittipaldi Formula1 team
where he works alongside the highly-respected Dr Harvey Postlethwaite and
future world champion Keke Rosberg.
1981 - Moves to March where he engineers
Johnny Cecotto’s race winning Formula 2 car.
1982/1983 – Designs March’s GTP sportscar
which wins the American IMSA GTP titles in 1983 and 1984.
1984 – Engineers Bobby Rahal’s March Indycar
at the Indy 500. The pair form a strong friendship
that lasts until today.
1985 – Designs the March 85C Indycar before
moving to the States to work for Michael Andretti and the Kraco Indycar
team
1986 – Spends a brief period of time working
for the Beatrice Haas F1 team where he acts a race
engineer for Patrick Tambay.
1987/1990 - Joins the Leyton House Formula
1 team as chief designer. Designs thegroundbreaking March 881 and introduces
the ‘stepped monocoque’ aerodynamic concept.
1990/1997 – Signs up with Williams in the
summer of 1990 and designs the Williams FW14 for Nigel Mansell which proves
to be the class of the field in the 1991 season. The team fails to win
the
championship but they make up for this in ’92 by winning
the title with the revolutionary FW14B. The car wins 10 out of 16 races.
Newey's Williams win three more drivers titles before he leaves for McLaren
in 1997.
1997/2002 – Newey joins McLaren and immediately
helps to transform the team’s fortunes. Newey’s first McLaren, the MP4-13,
breaks the team’s seven-year world championship drought by taking the 1998
drivers and constructors’ titles. The team does the double again in 1999
and Newey’s cars continue today to be among the best in F1.