The RACER magazine hitting mailboxes and inboxes right about now is our annual Great Cars Issue, but it could well have been called The Adrian Newey Issue, such is the Formula 1 design genius’s presence in it.
We take a look at some of his groundbreaking cars from three decades of F1, but we’re also looking forward to the next chapter of Newey’s still-cutting edge journey.
With Formula 1’s 2014 turbo-hybrid revamp and its 2022 ground effects redux as Exhibit A and B, it’s fair to say that when new rules come into play, you only get one chance to crack the code or you’ll be a long time playing catchup.
Which is where Newey comes in…
In 2014, Mercedes’ dominant W05 Hybrid was the total package, a car and power unit in harmony. But Newey’s Red Bull RB10 was arguably the better chassis/aero combo — one only let down by Renault’s lackluster PU.
In 2022, with Honda power supplanting the previous weak link, Newey’s RB18 was the class of the field. It remained so through two more iterations and into 2024’s RB20, until McLaren’s in-season revamp of its MCL38 finally unlocked Red Bull-matching — and now Red Bull-beating — performance.
Coming next, there’s another major F1 rules reset in 2026 — prime Newey territory. Which explains why Aston Martin has made F1’s enduring design trendsetter an offer he couldn’t — and didn’t — refuse.
The terms of Newey’s Red Bull contract put him out of play until next spring — too late to have a significant bearing on Aston’s 2025 car. But for 2026, with the playing field leveled and another opportunity for its new Chief Technical Officer to find the right answers at the first time of asking, expect Aston Martin to shine.
The “Newey Effect” has already produced title-winning F1 cars at Williams, McLaren and latterly Red Bull — albeit with an ever greater and more complex matrix of technical talent around him — but for this issue of RACER we’re going all the way back to his first F1 design, 1988’s March 881. With its naturally aspirated engine an obvious second best to the still-dominant turbos, it didn’t win a championship, or even a grand prix, but it did redefine F1 aero thinking in ways that still resonate today.
And 35 years on, we’re still wondering where Newey can take F1 next. That’s staying power.
Continuing the Great Cars theme — and moving it outside of Adrian Newey territory — we recall the early years of one of rallying’s most evocative cars, the Subaru Impreza (with Colin McRae at the wheel, power down and sideways, of course), and we tell the fascinating story of 1994’s Dauer 962LM, the race-to-road-to-race car that provided Porsche with a last-minute, left-field — and winning — solution to the question, what are we doing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year?
Also in this issue, we sit down with 2024 NTT IndyCar Series champ Alex Palou as he continues to forge a Hall of Fame career in double-quick time, find out how the storied Williams team is putting the pieces in place for a return to F1’s sharp end, and check out Tyler Reddick’s upward-trending NASCAR Cup Series arc. On two wheels, we meet a second-gen Deegan — as in, Haiden — as he unleashes a breakout year in motocross.
We enjoyed putting this one together, and we hope you enjoy it, too. Oh, and thanks for the storylines, Adrian Newey…
CLICK HERE to purchase the new issue of RACER. Interested in having RACER delivered to your mailbox? CLICK HERE to find out more about print and digital subscriptions.