Johnny Herbert: ‘An excited Adrian Newey is the worst scenario for the rest of F1 grid’

Adrian Newey belongs in the company of Colin Chapman and Gordon Murray when it comes to great Formula 1 designers. He’s the most amazing in my time, largely because of his career longevity. Yes, I know Rory Byrne is still working in the background at Ferrari but Newey has achieved so much at three different teams: Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. He’s still the leader of the pack and he’s still up for it, too.

How the rules have developed since the early 1990s – it’s almost as if they have followed him rather than the other way around. It’s amazing how he always comes up with the next big thing that everyone else then jumps on, just as Chapman used to. Such figures have an ability to understand what is going on around them while also thinking, “How am I going to beat everyone next year and the year after that?”

A recent example has been on ride heights with the pronounced rake his Red Bulls used to run. But now with the new ground effect cars the rake has been reduced while Mercedes’ has gone up… So they’ve dropped behind him again! The rake always looked wrong to me, but it sure worked.

Experience counts. See how he dealt with the porpoising issue we had last year. I’m convinced that goes back to his learnings from designing the March 82G GTP sports car. Similarly, Ferrari didn’t struggle so much with porpoising because Rory Byrne had ground effects experience at Toleman (it doesn’t matter that the cars weren’t competitive!).

Newey even led the way in his early F1 days at March (Leyton House). When I tested for Lotus in 1988 at Monza, the week before my Brands Hatch Formula 3000 crash, the Leyton House was running what I call those curliewurlie front wing endplates. Gérard Ducarouge then came up with his own for Lotus. He stuck them on and I seem to remember we were suddenly a second and a half quicker. Adrian had this creative vision from the start.

His strength is coming up with a concept, then pulling everyone together to have the same mindset. That’s the clever thing. He communicates his philosophy until the whole team is able to think like him, which makes a powerful collective brainpower. The only other person I can think of who worked like that was Byrne when I worked with him at Benetton. His relationship with Michael Schumacher was pretty awesome. They worked off each other. Rory always pushed the boundaries beyond what was probably allowed! Then he’d come back a bit to meet the regulations, which I think is what Adrian does.

It’s heartening that there’s still room for creativity in F1. There have been times when he seems to have got bored with how restrictive the rules have become. Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s there was more freedom and he could do almost anything he wanted. That must have excited him. Now with the new rules everything is fresh and so that’s got him excited again. When you get an excited Adrian Newey that’s the worst scenario for everybody else. He continually comes up with these nuggets. Red Bull was always there or thereabouts, but as he did at Williams and to a lesser extent at McLaren he’s now come up with a car that’s almost impossible to beat.

“This year Aston Martin has made a leap under Dan Fallows”

Today, the regulations make it harder to come up with something big like Gordon Murray’s Brabham fan car – but exploiting the detail requires the same skill. In fact, finding an edge now is probably harder. Then you throw in the relationship with the driver, in this case Max Verstappen, and it makes all the difference. Again, it reminds me of Michael at Benetton. This month, Sergio Pérez did a bloody good job in Saudi Arabia, but the focus at Red Bull is always going to be on Max, as it was in the past for teams who ran Emerson Fittipaldi, Niki Lauda, Michael and so on – because those were the guys who delivered every single time. But they wouldn’t have done without those key designer relationships.

So who is the next Newey? This year Aston Martin has made a leap under Dan Fallows, who worked under Newey and then switched from Red Bull. It’s been said the Aston is a Red Bull copy, but I think it’s probably more about the mindset Dan has absorbed from his time with Adrian. Of course he’ll have his own ideas. But if he has the clarity to work out the team direction beyond the end of his nose, that’s where he’ll make the difference.

You have those special drivers, and you have those special designers too. Whether Fallows is one remains to be seen, but he’s made a great start at Aston, and in Newey he has had the best possible teacher.

Johnny Herbert was a Formula 1 driver from 1989-2000 and a Le Mans winner in 1991. He is a regular contributor to Sky Sports F1
Follow Johnny on Twitter @johnnyherbertf1