3 times the Adrian Newey magic helped propel his team

Adrian Newey will leave Red Bull at the end of the first quarter of 2025. The ace designer has been part of the sport since the late 1980s. During this time, he's been part of three major teams.

Even though his journey started with Leyton House, he was swiftly hired by Williams. At the time, the Grove-based team was one of the frontrunners. He moved to McLaren soon after and tasted immediate success in 1998 and 1999.

In 2006, Adrian Newey met Christian Horner about a possible switch to Red Bull. After being convinced to be a part of the Milton Keynes-based team, Newey achieved unprecedented success.

He spearheaded the four-year dominance of Red Bull that began in 2010 and ended in 2013. He has also been one of the key members of the team that currently dominates the sport. More often than not, the true sign of genius is finding something that no one else thought of. This was precisely what made Newey brilliant.

During his three-decade stint in F1, Adrian Newey has been at the forefront of some very interesting innovations. Let's take a look.

3 impressive Adrian Newey inventions

#1 Active suspension pioneer (Williams)

When Adrian Newey joined Williams, the sport had seen McLaren take dominance to a whole other level. The team had the two best drivers on the grid in Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

It had the best car and the best engine to just exercise a next-level superiority over the grid. When Adrian Newey joined Williams, Patrick Head had extensively worked and invested in electronics.

In Adrian Newey, Head found a genius alongside him who would help him incorporate active suspension and moveable aerodynamics into the car. The result? Williams was just untouchable.

It was more than a second clear of the competition and just left rivals scratching their heads. It was the lure of driving a Newey car that saw Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna as well join the Grove-based squad and drive the best car on the grid.

This was arguably the accomplishment that woke the F1 world to this genius who was going to take the sport by storm.

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#2 The extra brake pedal (McLaren)

After a breakdown of his relationship with Williams, Newey was approached by McLaren and he promptly moved to the Woking-based squad.

The Ron Dennis-led team was struggling ever since the departure of its star drivers and engine partner in Honda. Adrian Newey left Williams and joined the squad in 1997, and it took him a year alone to get to grips with the new team.

In 1998, McLaren had a car that was a class of the field. It was, however later found that Newey had introduced what was a third lever other than the brake and accelerator for the drivers. The purpose of the third lever was to apply brakes to one of the tires to provide further stability while braking.

It was expected to be worth half a second and was something that stunned everyone when it was revealed to the competition.

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#3 The off-throttle blown diffuser (Red Bull)

Red Bull's four-year dominance was a direct result of the team having the best correlation tools as the in-season testing ban impacted Ferrari and McLaren. The other such impact came from having Adrian Newey implement a brilliant mechanism where the exhaust from the engine was used to provide rear-end stability.

The off-throttle blown diffuser gave Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel the kuch desired rear-end stability and it was Newey's uncanny ability to engineer it into the car every year that helped the team win four in a row.