Adrian Newey moved to tears by first Aston Martin F1 car

21:20, 09 Feb

byBen Hunt

Emotional Adrian Newey has spoken about coming close to tears at seeing the creation of his first Aston Martin F1 car come to life.

F1’s most successful designer has penned this season’s challenger for the Silverstone-based team and says he was delighted to see the car together. Speaking at a livery launch in Saudi Arabia, Newey mentioned lubricant partners Aramco and power unit makers Honda in a gushing tribute. He said: “Can I start by just saying, I've seen many launches. I think that was outstanding.

"It really made me feel proud to be part of Aramco, of Honda, Aston Martin, the music, I mean it was absolutely stunning.

"It's great to see the car as it'll be racing. The car we ran briefly at Barcelona for a day and a half was all black. Partly in truth, because we didn't have time to paint it."

Newey shared moment with Aston Martin owner, Lawrence Stroll

He added: "Funnily enough, Lawrence and I, when it first pulled out of the garage, with Lance driving, we were standing next to each other in the pit lane, and I think we were both quite close to having a tear in our eyes because it's been a long, emotional journey of passion and a lot of hard work to get it to Barcelona.

"To see the car now paired with the livery it will be wearing, racing with, is of course how everybody will see it, so it's a very important part.”

Photo: Race Pictures

Newey says he came up with the concept of this year’s car before he joined Aston Martin after parting ways with Red Bull. He added: “Can I see air? The answer is no, I can’t. But I try to do my best to visualise what the flow is and what it's likely to be.

“Nowadays, of course, with CFD - computational fluid dynamics - then that's a fabulous tool for actually being able to stare at a computer screen and understand what's going on and it's unlike the old days where it was a wind tunnel and bits of smoke and flow and wool tufts, now you can see it in much more detail.

“But it's that only tells you what it's doing at that point in time. It's then using the clues from that to try to go forwards and develop the next idea.

"We all knew what the regulations were. They were published. So I just tried to sit back and think, ‘OK, just think from first principles, what are these regulations? What could be a possible solution?’ “I came up with a philosophy, and then when I started at the team on the 2nd of March, I kind of discussed that philosophy with the aerodynamicists and the designers at Aston Martin.

“We all agreed that that seemed a viable proposal, and that's what we've followed ever since.”

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