Aston Martin’s new technical chief Adrian Newey has joked that he stays “the final dinosaur” in Method 1, as he continues to depend on drawing boards to design automobiles in an period dominated by digital instruments.
Newey has lengthy been considered one of many best F1 designers of all time, with 2023 marking the twelfth time a automobile created by him gained the constructors’ championship.
This 12 months, he has launched into a brand new chapter with Aston Martin, becoming a member of the Silverstone-based outfit forward of the game’s main regulation overhaul in 2026.
What units Newey other than his contemporaries is his continued use of bodily drawing boards at a time when superior pc software program is taken into account important to fashionable F1 automobile growth.
Newey acknowledged the old-school nature of his strategies as he mirrored on how F1 design has developed over the a long time.
“I’m the final dinosaur within the trade that also makes use of a drafting board. That’s true,” he mentioned on the Goodwood Pageant of Velocity.
“For me, it’s only a language — a method of creating ideas from in right here [brain] and onto a medium, after which evolving them from there.”
Trying again at how F1 has modified over the a long time, Newey added: “It’s fascinating. I’ve been in Method 1 fairly some time now – I’ve been in motor racing since I graduated.
“The large change actually got here when groups began rising and started using aerodynamicists within the late ’70s and early ’80s. By the top of the ’80s, groups had been as much as round 200 [people].
“Then into the early ’90s, the pc age kicked in, and that actually modified issues. It allowed for a a lot deeper understanding of what we had been doing than we had beforehand.”
F1 will introduce sweeping modifications to each chassis and engine rules in 2026, in what has been described as one of many largest overhauls within the championship’s historical past.
Newey admitted that such main rule modifications proceed to reinvigorate him, ven if there aren’t any ensures of success.
“I do discover regulation modifications stimulating,” he mentioned. “They create a chance for brand spanking new concepts.
“It’s the identical for everyone, so I’m not saying we’re going to do one thing spectacular in any respect — however it’s stimulating.”
