With the news being revealed earlier this week that Adrian Newey has expressed his intention to leave Red Bull, many have touted the British engineer to be moving to Ferrari. Amid this speculation, a statistic has been doing the rounds. Legendary F1 designer Gary Anderson has put out a statistic that reveals that Newey has had the edge over Ferrari since 1991.
Since ’91, Ferrari have gone on to register one of the most dominant runs with Michael Schumacher. With the legendary German driver at their helm, the team won five consecutive Constructors’ and Driver’s titles from 2000 to 2004.
However, despite their staggering dominance, the numbers weren’t enough to keep Newey behind. As Anderson revealed, for a piece with The Race, the cars Newey designed for their rivals won 13 Driver’s titles and 12 Constructors’ Championships as compared to Ferrari’s total of six and eight, respectively.
Moreover, Newey also has beaten Ferrari in terms of poles and wins. Newey’s cars have registered 219 poles and 217 wins. Meanwhile, Ferrari have registered 139 a piece.
Newey, who is often regarded as one of the greatest F1 designers of all time, has worked with some iconic teams. He worked with Williams from 1991 to 1997. He then then jumped ship to McLaren for seven seasons before joining Red Bull in 2006.
During his stints with these teams, he’s led drivers like Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Mika Hakkinen, and Sebastian Vettel to glory, among others. But his time with Max Verstappen, since 2022, is destined to go down in the history books as arguably the greatest partnership ever.
Is Adrian Newey Max Verstappen’s most prized asset?
What Adrian Newey has achieved with Red Bull in the latest ‘ground-effect’ era of the sport has never been accomplished before. The team’s 2023 challenger, the RB19, went on to become statistically the most successful car in the history of the sport – eclipsing the legendary McLaren MP 4/4 from the 1988 season.
In both 2022 and 2023, the team managed to win both the Drivers’ and the Constructors’ Championships. And in 2024, they are on course to repeat the same. And given the dominance of the Red Bull cars on track, their success has boiled down to the fact that Newey has aced the aerodynamic regulations to perfection.
The British engineer did have a head-start on everyone else, though. As it turns out, Newey had done his university thesis on ground effect aerodynamics. Hence, it is no surprise that he has mastered the concepts and it showed when the cars hit the Bahrain track for the very first race of the 2022 season.
If Newey does indeed move to Ferrari in 2025, it could be disastrous for Red Bull. With Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc set to form a partnership in 2025, Newey’s addition could help Ferrari become a force to reckon with.
