Newey on how he managed to build the best car

In the Beyond The Grid podcast, Red Bull technical director Adrian Newey tells how he has once again built the best car that has dominated Formula 1 since last year.

Adrian Newey: “For last year’s car we opted for a different aerodynamic concept than Mercedes. In 2022 they were competitive at times, won in Brazil and we had a choice: study their car for what we were missing, or stick to our plan. And we continued to develop our ideas.

When building a car, it is important to carefully read the regulations and try to understand how best to place the front and rear wheels relative to the fixed elements: the chassis, engine and gearbox. The basic architecture comes first.

I focused on the architecture and then switched to the front and rear suspension – these are the main parts we have to try to get right. If you make a mistake with the body, you can make adjustments as the season progresses. But if you make a mistake with the basic architecture, you’ll be stuck with it for at least the entire season.

In 2021 we fought with Mercedes for the championship title until the last moment. For the first time in many years we had a real chance, so we put a lot of effort into further refining the car. Ferrari took the opposite approach. They weren’t in contention for the title in 2021, so they stopped development very early and focused on the ’22 car. Mercedes was somewhere between us.

We continued development much longer than both of these teams. In theory this put us at a disadvantage, but it allowed us to get the architecture right.

When our RB18 turned up at the first round in Bahrain last year, the Ferrari car was just as fast, if not faster. But we have laid the right foundation, which has become a good platform for further development.

We also had problems with the build-up in the beginning, not as bad as other teams, but we had a reasonable understanding of what needed to be done.”