How to Build a Car: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer

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Adrian Newey. How to Build a Car: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer

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Clouds were gathering that day. Rain was forecast. Feeling scrutinised, I lowered myself creakily into the cockpit of the FW15, painfully aware that at 35, after 10 years in the business, and with two constructors’ championships under my belt, I was about to take my first proper spin in a Formula One car – in fact, my first real drive on a race track, period.

It was 1993, and I was chief designer at Williams. Frank Williams, owner of the team, had been talked into letting a journalist take one of our cars for a spin. What you might call a promotional drive. With that idea gaining traction, co-founder and technical director, Patrick Head, thought that the senior engineers, him, me and Bernard Dudot, who was in charge of Renault engine development, should also have a go.

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Repton disapproved. In an effort to stop the dangerous viral spread of platform shoes, the school had passed an edict banning any shoe under which you could pass a penny on its end. Being a smart Alec I’d used a piece of aluminium to bridge the gap between heel and sole, thus allowing me to wear my platform boots while still abiding by the letter of the law (no prizes for spotting the connection between that and what I do now). Unsurprisingly, the powers that be at Repton took a dim view of this particular act of rule-bending, but it enhanced my reputation in the teachers’ common room for being a troublemaker.

Anyway. I digress. The advantage of the fashion, in particular the forgiving trousers, was their suitability for hiding bottles of booze. Sure enough, what we fifth-formers did was tape half-bottles of gin, vodka and whatever other spirits we could purloin to our shins, then swish into the concert with the contraband safely hidden beneath our flapping trouser legs.

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