Adrian Newey is one of the brightest minds the world of Formula 1 has seen. Newey is known for his many successes in the highest category of motorsport, especially in the 4 years that Red Bull Racing's hegemony lasted. Many people claim that it was thanks to him that the energy drink team achieved everything we already know so far. In an interview made by "the-race.com", Newey has revealed some aspects that we did not know about his personality, he has even commented on the occasion in which he almost decided to retire from the category. Here are the most important statements the British has made.

Going from a 4 world championships in a row to a complete Mercedes domination must have been tough for Red Bull’s Technical Director, as he said: “Back then I was pretty disillusioned with the whole thing to be honest in as much as… obviously I nearly joined Ferrari but didn’t, which was kind of [part of it]… but more than anything, although I felt happy at Red Bull and didn’t really want to move teams, the only thing that had pushed me towards even thinking about moving teams was that we were stuck with an uncompetitive engine.” Newey revealed.

“If you have an engine partner who comes up with a power unit that’s below the competitors but shows a real desire and a will to fix it and go forward, then you accept it.”

“I didn’t want to change teams – and that’s really where the [Aston Martin Valkyrie] road car project came in. That kept me motivated and occupied for a bit and then once we’d signed the deal with Honda and it was clear that we had a partner that, ok, might not be quite there at that point, they definitely had the drive and motivation to get there.”

In terms of designing this year’s contender, Adrian Newey has affirmed that the group of people working in Red Bull’s factory back in Milton Keynes, UK, has an special effect on how the team achieve all these victories, since teamwork is the main thing there. “I’m lucky enough to have a really good group of people at Milton Keynes and it’s very good team. All F1 teams are big engineering teams but in terms of the involvement in meetings, I put my tuppence-worth in but it’s the guys who bat those ideas around and maybe come up with a list and go away and do the work.”

“Specifically, on this car [the RB18] I did the front and rear suspension and a few other bits and pieces. I do enjoy reg changes but when I first saw these regs I was quite depressed by them. At first sight, they appear to be very prescriptive. But as you dig into it more then – particularly in the area of the sidepod and floor – there’s actually a reasonable degree of freedom. More than you first think.”

When talking about the freedom on the design of these 2022 cars, Adrian Newey commented that the chassis, front wing, and both suspensions had a lot of freedom, that is why Red Bull’s technical director saw all the different designs coming from the different teams, except Mercedes’ one. “As we got into it and realised that, then I’m not surprised there’s been a reasonable diversity of shapes. I certainly didn’t see the Mercedes sidepod solution coming. The other cars, the broad differences in sidepod shape have not completely surprised me.”

Newey has a lot of experience when talking about drivers and how to approach them. Newey has commented that in his point of view, reining champion’s reputation of being extremely aggressive is ‘unfair’ as he compare the Dutchman with some other drivers he . “What’s great about Max is you always know what the car’s capable of because he always gets in it and wrings its neck. His feedback is good, he’s very aware of what the tyres are doing and how to manage them. I think his reputation for being wild is unfair.”

“Saudi was silly but I think he got frustrated with Lewis not overtaking him but he still shouldn’t have brake-tested him. But Silverstone to me was a clear professional foul [by Hamilton] and people seem to have a short memory. He’s [Max] very easy to work with, very open. You ask him to do things and he’ll always try.”

“Sebastian [Vettel] was very, very detailed in his post-session analysis. The debriefs would go on for quite some time. Seb would stay long into the evening, going through on-board videos, going through data, talking to his engineer. Max is not as extreme, is more in the middle.”

“The Finns like Mika [Hakkinen] and Kimi [Raikkonen], the debrief was about five words and that’s the last you’d see of them! Mika in particular I worked quite closely with him, less so with Kimi. Once you took the time to understand his language – because he did describe things differently to a typical English driver, let’s say – while he was short and succinct he was very good at pointing out what he needed to go faster.”

As we’ve mentioned, Newey is one of the greatest minds that F1 has seen. He has a lot of experience with drivers, with car problems (not only in terms of design, but also mechanical). Red Bull has an extremely dangerous weapon and we are not talking about their two drivers, but their Technical Director, Adrian Newey.