Adrian Newey regrets one thing: 'Always wanted to work with him'

F1 News

newey positive about verstappen and would have liked to work with alonso
26 December 2023 at 12:00
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  • Toby McLuskie

Adrian Newey has already won his 23rd F1 world title with Max Verstappen's car in 2023. With those 23 world titles under his belt, the Briton is rightly thought to be the best designer ever in F1. In an interview with the BBC talks about Verstappen and whether Newey has any regrets in his nearly 30-year career.

The designer of the immensely successful RB19 is very fond of Max Verstappen: ''I have been fortunate enough to have worked with several great drivers," he says, "and while their personalities can be significantly different in how they conduct themselves - their approach to little things like debriefs after each session - the thing they all have in common is the ability to drive the car with a lot of mental reserves left.'' Newey says. He continues: ''They are able to drive the car with enough capacity left over to think about how they are using the tyres, how the race is unfolding when to push, when to not push, more of course now in particular with these cars, how to adjust the electronics settings to suit the handling of the car as it develops through the race. Max is quite exceptional at that."

Newey regrets

With such a long career, Newey must have made choices he regretted in hindsight, or drivers he would have liked to have driven with. ''Well, clearly first and foremost to have had a longer relationship with Ayrton Senna,'' Newey begins, ''In terms of drivers, Fernando Alonso is one I have always wanted to work with. "That's a regret that that never happened because I have a tremendous respect for Fernando.'' In 2013, there was a brief conversation between the two during the Spa GP, unfortunately, it never came to a collaboration.