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The Newey bounce: How long did it take for his teams to succeed in F1?
On Tuesday, it was announced officially that Adrian Newey is joining Aston Martin. It will be the British master designer's fifth team in his Formula 1 career that dates back to 1988. Since then, other than with his first team, Leyton House, he has won a drivers' and a constructors' title with all of them. But how long did it take until the engineer could improve and succeed with his team?
Newey's titles
Adrian Newey has won 12 constructors' titles in his career, and designed cars for seven world champions (Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Mika Häkkinen, Jacques Villeneuve, Damon Hill, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell) who won 13 drivers' titles in total. He won six titles with Red Bull Racing, five titles with Williams, one with McLaren. The first year he was part of a victorious team was in 1992, and the last one dates back to the last season and RB19.
Leyton House and first titles with Williams
Adrian Newey's first job was in 1988, when he joined Leyton House. The team were rebranded from March, a team that did have success in the early 1970s. They were revived in 1987, after they left the competition for the second time in 1982. In Newey's first season at the team, Leyton House managed to finish on the podium twice, and for the first time at the first GP of 1989. In 1988, the team scored 22 points and finished sixth in the constructors' standings, after only scoring a single point the year before.
Even as Newey was let go in 1990, he joined Williams 1991, and already won a title a year after. The Briton teamed up with Patrick Head, and chief designer of the car for Nigel Mansell that earned him the title in 1992, and then for Alain Prost in 1993. Even as they won the constructors' title eventually in a more difficult year in 1994, Newey was placed on gardening leave in 1996. Even as he already left the team, Newey also worked on creating Williams' 1997 car, that won the team's final titles to this day.
Early success at McLaren and Red Bull challenge
As working for Williams, he could defeat a dominant McLaren team, after joining McLaren, he won both titles in the 1998 season already as a technical director. Mika Häkkinen could defend his title the next year, while Ferrari won the constructors'. Between 2000 and 2004, Michael Schumacher and the Italians won every title, while Fernando Alonso and Renault were victorious in 2005.
It was announced in November 2005 that Newey would join Red Bull Racing. Newey was named CTO and could focus on the 2007 car. The team's first hit was the RB5 of 2009, where they finished second in the constructors' championship behind Brawn GP but managed to be competitive, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber also winning Grands Prix. Then, in 2010, Vettel began his streak of winning four titles in a row.
After Mercedes' domination early in the hybrid era, Red Bull could get back to winning ways in 2021 with Max Verstappen defeating Lewis Hamilton in the drivers' standings, and then in 2022, the team won the constructors' title for the first time since 2013. Newey also played a big role in designing the RB19, that won all but one Grand Prix in 2023.
Newey now will join Aston Martin next year. Whether the Briton could be as successful as he was at his previous teams, only time will tell. Still, even as it took four years - as he focused on the 2007 car already in the 2006 season already - at Red Bull to win a title, he succeeded already in his second year at both Williams and McLaren, and at Leyton House, he earned his team podiums in his first ever year in the competition.
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