Adrian Newey will not work at Ferrari. This is important news for the future of the red team in Formula 1. And what’s left to do now is to think that when the fox can’t reach the grapes, it says they are sour. The failure of Adrian Newey to arrive at the service of the Maranello team is a serious matter. An event that seemed almost certain until the Prancing Horse didn’t accept the long list of demands from the brilliant British designer. The appointment of Loic Serra as technical director in place of Italian aerodynamicist Enrico Cardile, honestly, doesn’t inspire the dreams of the Maranello team’s fans. At this point, the sudden resignation of the Italian engineer seems to make sense.
They could indeed be closely linked to the clear intention of Frederic Vasseur to entrust the technical direction of the historic Italian team to the French manager as soon as possible. Essentially, Enrico Cardile was just a placeholder, waiting for the gardening leave of the former Mercedes team manager to end. Ferrari’s cold statement yesterday, posted on social media without further comment, confirms what had been clear for several weeks and what only Frederic Vasseur’s cryptic comments could still obscure.
In the time that has passed between Charles Leclerc’s victories at the Monaco Grand Prix and last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at the Monza circuit, the hiring of Adrian Newey by Ferrari has become an increasingly remote possibility. Raise your hand if, among the red team’s fans, you hadn’t hoped until the last moment that the legendary car designer would finally land in Maranello, after over a quarter of a century of courting. In the future, the reasons why the logical crowning of the extraordinary career of the aerodynamics wizard did not materialize will probably become clearer.
In the meantime, however, the supporters of the Maranello team have no choice but to accept this sort of defeat, watching as the British engineer settles at Silverstone. Ferrari has chosen to restart from the strength of the group rather than the brilliance of the individual, at least according to Frederic Vasseur’s (circumstantial) statements. In the collective imagination, hiring the English engineer is synonymous with success regardless, as Adrian Newey’s professional career is filled with victories. However, many forget that the former Red Bull engineer has also suffered defeats, such as during Ferrari’s winning cycles at the start of the millennium and more recently Mercedes’ during the turbo-hybrid era.
The Adrian Newey equals success equation is not so certain. His latest experience at Red Bull proves this. The designer joined the Milton Keynes team back in 2006, but the first victories came only three years later. Of course, at that time, the Austrian team was an organization with resources and infrastructure not comparable to what Adrian Newey would have found at Ferrari, or perhaps will find at Aston Martin. Nevertheless, he also struggled, and in Formula 1, his great ideas have not always yielded immediate results.
Looking back, we will remember the shocking flop of the McLaren MP4/18, a car designed that never even participated in a single official session of a Grand Prix in the 2003 Formula 1 championship. Ron Dennis’s team was forced to race with an evolved version of the MP4/17, used in the 2002 season. Yet, with the MP4/17D, Kimi Raikkonen contested the title against Michael Schumacher until the last race at the Suzuka circuit. These references to the past are not intended to diminish the stature of the English engineer, whose contribution to the history of Formula 1 is immense.
The aim, rather, is to critically but intellectually honestly evaluate Adrian Newey, considering every aspect. The British engineer’s managerial style is very different from the Italian stereotype: the Briton is a free spirit, and a team must adapt its organization to his way of thinking and acting in order to have him. For example, at Red Bull, his presence at headquarters was not continuous. Moreover, like many artists, the “beautiful mind” does not like bureaucracy and restrictions. This is why he ran away from Woking as soon as he had the chance.
A famous incident was the verbal warning he received for not following the designated route to reach his office at McLaren. Considering that Ferrari is not exactly the ideal place to work calmly, due to the enormous media pressure, could we really have taken Adrian Newey’s potential success for granted? A question that unfortunately will never find an answer but only speculation. However, according to our opinion, which as such does not claim to be right, especially if success had not come immediately, how would Adrian Newey have managed the situation?
Unfortunately, anyone who sets foot in Maranello today inevitably has to deal with the external pressure from the media and fans, who have been waiting for a Formula 1 world title in the most important motorsport series for nearly two decades. In short, the longer the drought continues, the less time is allowed to return to the top. Perhaps even this burden was considered by the genius of modern Formula 1. Silverstone is a calm environment, and Aston Martin can wait for its wizard to take it to the top of the world without haste. At Ferrari, time has run out, and the appointment with history must happen as soon as possible.
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