Adrian Newey, what makes him so good as a designer?

[marcush.]

Please don't insult designers by comparing them with you know who. Haven't heard of any designer beating his rival by spilling ink on his colleague's drawing board or bending the ruler (now this is a great one)

hahaha ..
I really admire Newey ...but wasn´t he the guy signing for Jaguar with his old mate
Bobby Rahal and hours later taking the money from Ron Dennis and staying put at Mclaren..so maybe he was also not so great or free from human shortcomings if you like to dwell on lack of character or personal shortcomings towards other people.
It must have cost poor Ron Dennis Millions of pounds compensation to Jag back then..

[Jersey Tom]

You guys do realize that Newey doesn't design the car, right?

[engineguru00]

You guys do realize that Newey doesn't design the car, right?

Thats kinda what I tried to point out in my post. He steers the direction of the design, but the actual engineering is left to others.

[Fil]

You guys do realize that Newey doesn't design the car, right?

i sure hope people here realise he's progressed beyond that specific hands-on role by now in his career.

[Pandamasque]

Adrian Newey has a very aerodynamically shaped head, unlike Patrick Head. That's why RBR are outperforming Williams.

What's with this trend for useless 'what if' topics?

[marcush.]

the boss calls the shots and decides on direction.
see this snippet circling around his motivation to leave Macs:
http://www.motorsport-total.com/f1/news ... 11005.html
he wants to have first and last say in the productdevelopment process in between the guys can do their thing and bring in expertise.

everyone can see his line on these cars. so does he design the car ? in a ways yes.

do you think he has developed into the big organisator and sitting behind the desk in an administratory role?

[mep]

Hey I found that drawing he gave his desing department for new RedBull without using CAD:



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I am just joking I hope you don't take it to serious.

To be honest I think Newey and Brawn are some really special guys.
They just know what a car needs under given regulations to be quick.
It would be really interesting to know what they actually do.
They probably both don't actually design anything, they just define the basic layout. I think you can get down a car to a mathematical model and then find one optimal solution for basic layout under given boundary conditions (rules).
All the rest is finding solutions for every detail of the car to realize the basic layout.

[noname]

It would be really interesting to know what they actually do.
They probably both don't actually design anything, they just define the basic layout. I think you can get down a car to a mathematical model and then find one optimal solution for basic layout under given boundary conditions (rules).
All the rest is finding solutions for every detail of the car to realize the basic layout.

all depends on how you understand therm "designing a car" (or something similarly complex). if one think it means playing with CAD then no, Newey is not a designer.

in fact design engineer in leading position acts as an integrator. his job is to ask the right questions to the right people (guys from aero, engine, vehicle dynamics, electronics, manufacturing, assembly, maintenance, etc., etc.) making decisions and taking responsibility for the outcome (it's not always the glory...). do not forget car consist thousands of parts - you just can not design them all in reasonable time.

I remember some article created by one of my former chief engineers. there was something like this: "how to find out if design engineer is good ? all people working with him should complain he demands a lot of precise information from them and is rarely satisfied with what he gets").

[donskar]

Two points:
1) Let's not forget that the Byrne-Ferrari team was more than up to beating Newey-McLaren.
2) That aside, I think Newey will go down in history as one of the top 2 or 3 designers because of his long history of success. Here is an interesting quote:

"Heinz-Harald Frentzen . . . joked that McLaren technical director Adrian Newey should be offered early retirement by the sport's governing body, the FIA." SOURCE: Autosport, March 25, 1999.

[Tonn]

Newey way is the right way

[conni]

the guy is worth £100000000000000 of course he doesnt design every part but every part is designed to do what he wants

conni

[ringo]

To me him directing the design means that he designs the car. He wont be doing the nitty gritty modeling, but the design direction is most important because it dictates the design as a whole.
In a war the general has the big picture, while the troops on the ground do the nitty gritty.
Newey is a general, and if he has to do the designing hands on, he is very well capable of it, i believe.
Better to have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep. I think this reasoning may be the downfall with some teams who have the capable engineers like Mclaren, but have lost newey and have someone else.
And the uprising of a team like red bull that have now taken the right leadership.

[Shaddock]

To me him directing the design means that he designs the car. He wont be doing the nitty gritty modeling, but the design direction is most important because it dictates the design as a whole.
In a war the general has the big picture, while the troops on the ground do the nitty gritty.
Newey is a general, and if he has to do the designing hands on, he is very well capable of it, i believe.
Better to have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep. I think this reasoning may be the downfall with some teams who have the capable engineers like Mclaren, but have lost newey and have someone else.
And the uprising of a team like red bull that have now taken the right leadership.

+1

His job would be chairing the debate with the dept heads on the pros/cons the rear suspension layout gives them versus a regular one, and so on. He's the one that get's to make that call that leads the team down it's development path.

[mep]

the guy is worth £100000000000000 of course he doesnt design every part but every part is designed to do what he wants

conni

I just read that he gets 8 million euro a year from RedBull.
This surprises me a bit, I thougt it must have been more for such a man.
Does anybody know how much Brawn got while he was at Ferrari or any other top rated engineer?

[CHT]

the guy is worth £100000000000000 of course he doesnt design every part but every part is designed to do what he wants

conni

I just read that he gets 8 million euro a year from RedBull.
This surprises me a bit, I thougt it must have been more for such a man.
Does anybody know how much Brawn got while he was at Ferrari or any other top rated engineer?

Thats probably because he is still living in England and not Switzerland.