Q+A with Adrian Newey

When he was awarded the John Bolster prize at the weekend, Adrian Newey was credited with a unique achievement: having designed winning cars for four winning teams: Williams, McLaren, Toro Rosso and last season of course, Red Bull.

Red Bull caught up with their chief technical officer in the Factory to ask him about success, the changes for 2010 and what drives him.

Does that appetite for success ever diminish? “No. For me 2009 was a great year because, although we didn’t manage to win the championship, Red Bull Racing as a team matured to the point where we were able to win races and challenge for a championship. For the team to achieve that so early in its history has been very satisfying.”

Is that what drives you – success and challenging for world titles? “It’s progress really. I enjoy design, I enjoy regulation changes because it gives the opportunity to take a blue-sky approach. I find regulations which have been for a long period of time, which was the position we got to at the end of 2008, are less interesting because it’s not then about new ideas or new understanding it’s about lots of tiny iterations and that really is a matter of resource rather than invention.”

Will the relatively small rule changes for 2010 change your approach to the design of the RB6? “The main change in regulations for 2010 are much smaller than for 2009: the only ones of significance are the ban on re-fuelling and the smaller front tyre. That’s meant we’ve gone for a much more evolutionary design route whereas the RB5 was a totally different car compared to its predecessor to satisfy a totally different set of regulations.”

Has the success of last season better prepared the team for 2010? What sort of lessons have been learned? “I guess the most obvious thing is that it gives the team confidence now that they can go out now and win races and field a very competitive car. How that affects our season next year remains to be seen but it has given a lot of people within the company confidence in their own ability. Other than that, it’s a new season and everything as usual is up for grabs - it may be that other people have made big strides over the winter and so how we all start the season remains to be seen."