King Maker

Looking back across the pantheon of Formula One greats one can find a rare subset of champions who not only rose to the pinnacle of the sport, but went on to claim the mantle of champion multiple times, names like Stewart, Clark, Lauda and Senna. Yet, an even more rarified strata exists for a handful of drivers that have won four or more championships in their career—Juan Manuel Fangio, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, and as of the end of October, now Sebastein Vettel. While Vettel’s fourth Drivers World Championship is a remarkable achievement, it is in many ways dwarfed by that of one of his teammates. “Huh?” you may ask yourself. “I wasn’t aware the Mark Webber had won any championships?” No, it is another one of Vettel’s teammates who—with the Red Bull team’s win in the Indian Grand Prix—raised his career total to 10 World Driving Championships and 10 Constructors Championships. That man is Adrian Newey, who now wears the crown as the winningest Formula One designer of all time. In many respects, he is the maker of kings…and perhaps, the destroyer of heroes.

After graduating from the University of Southampton with a degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics, Newey went to work as a race engineer for the Fittipaldi GP team before moving to the March F2 program. Newey was given his first design project when he was directed to design March’s entry into IMSA’s new GTP race series for 1983. In retrospect, it is perhaps not surprising that Newey’s March 83G would go on to win both the 1983 and 1984 IMSA championships, but at the time it did generate quite a bit of buzz.