Adrian Newey Keeps Making the Same Mistake
Wheel Sports
169,861 views
Adrian Newey has designed some of the most dominant Formula 1 cars ever built.
He has also designed cars that failed crash tests, caught fire, suffered catastrophic aerodynamic instability, and sometimes exposed weaknesses inside the teams trying to build them.
And strangely, the same problem keeps appearing.
From a broken wind tunnel at Leyton House, to the unstable Williams FW16, McLaren’s disastrous MP4-18, Red Bull’s fragile early cars, and now Aston Martin’s troubled 2026 season, Newey’s most ambitious designs have repeatedly pushed teams beyond what their tools, factories and engineering systems were ready to handle.
Now, with Aston Martin sitting at the bottom end of the championship and suffering eleven retirements in twelve races, history may be repeating itself again.
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📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!
The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH
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🏁 IN THIS EPISODE
We trace Adrian Newey’s career from the tiny March 881 that stunned Formula 1 in 1988, through the Leyton House wind tunnel disaster that nearly destroyed his reputation, and into the Williams years that made him a world champion.
We look at why active suspension made Newey’s ultra-narrow aerodynamic operating windows so devastatingly effective, what changed when the technology was banned for 1994, and why the Williams FW16 became such a difficult and unpredictable car.
Then we move to McLaren, where the MP4-13 won the championship almost immediately — before Newey was given near-total freedom to create the MP4-18, a machine that produced incredible simulation numbers but never started a Grand Prix.
We also examine the early Red Bull years, when Newey admitted he had tried to make the team “run before it could walk,” and how Red Bull eventually transformed its manufacturing, reliability and technical systems around the demands of his designs.
Finally, we come to Aston Martin in 2026.
A brand-new wind tunnel. A simulator that initially failed to correlate. Legacy software and production systems. A rushed development programme. An extreme aerodynamic concept. And eleven retirements from the opening twelve races.
Is Adrian Newey making the same mistake again?
Or does Aston Martin simply need time to build the organisation around him?
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🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT
📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH
📺 Documentary channel: @thatjasonhassett
🔔 Subscribe for weekly stories about Formula 1, racing history, engineering, drivers and the decisions that shaped motorsport.
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#AdrianNewey #Formula1 #F1 #AstonMartinF1 #RedBullRacing #WilliamsF1 #McLarenF1 #AyrtonSenna #F1History #Motorsport #WheelSports
20 Comments
Only Senna's talent and bad reliability caused Williams to lose in 1991. The active suspension that transformed the car into the FW14B next year only made it even better, but it was already excellent.
Adrian Newey Keeps Making the Same Mistake
Wheel Sports
169,861 views
Adrian Newey has designed some of the most dominant Formula 1 cars ever built.
He has also designed cars that failed crash tests, caught fire, suffered catastrophic aerodynamic instability, and sometimes exposed weaknesses inside the teams trying to build them.
And strangely, the same problem keeps appearing.
From a broken wind tunnel at Leyton House, to the unstable Williams FW16, McLaren’s disastrous MP4-18, Red Bull’s fragile early cars, and now Aston Martin’s troubled 2026 season, Newey’s most ambitious designs have repeatedly pushed teams beyond what their tools, factories and engineering systems were ready to handle.
Now, with Aston Martin sitting at the bottom end of the championship and suffering eleven retirements in twelve races, history may be repeating itself again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 ORDER MY NEW BOOK "History Written by Losers" — out now!
The true story of global power has been whitewashed by the victors and the fixers. This book tells the side of history they tried to bury.
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏁 IN THIS EPISODE
We trace Adrian Newey’s career from the tiny March 881 that stunned Formula 1 in 1988, through the Leyton House wind tunnel disaster that nearly destroyed his reputation, and into the Williams years that made him a world champion.
We look at why active suspension made Newey’s ultra-narrow aerodynamic operating windows so devastatingly effective, what changed when the technology was banned for 1994, and why the Williams FW16 became such a difficult and unpredictable car.
Then we move to McLaren, where the MP4-13 won the championship almost immediately — before Newey was given near-total freedom to create the MP4-18, a machine that produced incredible simulation numbers but never started a Grand Prix.
We also examine the early Red Bull years, when Newey admitted he had tried to make the team “run before it could walk,” and how Red Bull eventually transformed its manufacturing, reliability and technical systems around the demands of his designs.
Finally, we come to Aston Martin in 2026.
A brand-new wind tunnel. A simulator that initially failed to correlate. Legacy software and production systems. A rushed development programme. An extreme aerodynamic concept. And eleven retirements from the opening twelve races.
Is Adrian Newey making the same mistake again?
Or does Aston Martin simply need time to build the organisation around him?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔗 LINKS & SUPPORT
📚 The book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GP9TKPBH
📺 Documentary channel: @thatjasonhassett
🔔 Subscribe for weekly stories about Formula 1, racing history, engineering, drivers and the decisions that shaped motorsport.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
#AdrianNewey #Formula1 #F1 #AstonMartinF1 #RedBullRacing #WilliamsF1 #McLarenF1 #AyrtonSenna #F1History #Motorsport #WheelSports
He's always a year or two ahead of the manufacturering capabilities of his teams. When they try to do what he wants, they can't get it done.