Motor racing: The Newey world order

ACCORDING to Damon Hill, Adrian Newey is the best designer in Formula One. After the McLaren-Mercedes of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard walked last weekend's Australian Grand Prix, an observer suggested that he was worth more than almost any of the drivers themselves.

Only the McLaren managing director, Ron Dennis, is at pains to play down the contribution that Newey has made since switching from chief designer at Williams to become technical director at McLaren, but that is only because he does not want to upset staff over whom Newey has now assumed control.

The 39-year-old designer is the man of the moment in a sport in which the technical side gets more critical each year. Newey made his name when he joined Williams in 1990, to work with the technical director, Patrick Head, in the creation of the FW14 series of cars that sweptNigel Mansell to his World Championship in 1992. But even before that his sleek designs for the Leyton House team had earned praise. It was when his design flair was harnessed by Head's legendary pragmatism that his career really took off, the older man controlling the younger's occasional penchant for the impractical.

In the ensuing years the Newey/Head Williamses were the class of the field, taking not just Mansell but Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve to world crowns. But late in 1996, Newey became restless, angered by Williams's decision not to heed his advice and keep Hill. Newey felt stifled and McLaren wooed him energetically. After a prolonged divorce he eventually took up the reins as technical director at the team last August. The results of his labours, and those of the McLaren design team, were all too evident in Australia.

Habitually, McLaren technical staff are discouraged from divulging their personal feelings to the media, such is the secrecy with which Dennis likes to operate. But Newey indicated his motivations when he said: "The title of technical director, as such, doesn't interest me. But I wanted more freedom, a fresh challenge." Seven years at Williams was, after all, a long time.

McLaren's "fiddle" brake system - which biases braking effort from one side of the car to help it turn even better into corners - raised much controversy in Melbourne. But of equal value, though hidden in all the brouhaha, was Newey's interpretation of the regulations regarding the aerodynamics, always his special field of interest. Back in 1996 he was one of only two designers to cotton on to the idea of using a small raised spike which in effect allows the team to make a smaller and therefore more aerodynamically efficient chassis than their rivals'. By incorporating the spike Newey was able to conform with the regulations while nevertheless creating a sleeker, lower cockpit line which enhanced aerodynamic efficiency.

Now Newey has incorporated similar spikes elsewhere on the chassis to define its measurements at specifically mandated points while allowing other areas of the chassis to remain slimline and aerodynamically more efficient. Now, as then, fuming competitors have been forced to concede that a sharper intellect spotted loopholes in the regulations. Such ability, after all, is the hallmark of the great designers.

McLaren's current superiority, however, is a result of a number of key factors rather than just one. Newey has created a splendid chassis, while Mercedes-Benz's continuous development of its V10 engine, via the British- based company Ilmor Engineering, has kept it at the top of the power stakes. Bridgestone tyres were another aspect.

"We are impressed not so much by the lap times that we have been able to achieve, though that is, of course, very positive," Dennis said in Melbourne, "but by the tyres' consistency and the ability their performance gave us to predict their condition in 20 to 25 laps. Bridgestone have done a really fantastic job."

The world champion, Jacques Villeneuve, would no doubt acknowledge this privately. After finishing only fifth in Australia, and having been lapped by the McLarens after 36 of the race's scheduled 58 tours, he put on a brave face. "The supremacy of the McLarens is hard to accept and we have to react in the next races. It was only the first grand prix of a long season, and I think we made a mistake with our set-up."

If the performance of the McLarens on the low-grip track in Melbourne's Albert Park was a surprise to the team's rivals, McLaren in turn were surprised how the opposition underperformed. They had not expected such a gap to develop until the higher-grip venues, such as Interlagos where the Brazilian Grand Prix in two weeks' time promises similar domination. "If it had been necessary, I think I could have run the whole race at laps in the 1min 31sec bracket," the victorious Mika Hakkinen said. His team-mate, David Coulthard, apart, nobody else even got close to breaking 1min 33sec.

Such superiority will not easily be overthrown. Ferrari's top brass have denied that they have already offered Michael Schumacher pounds 50m to stay until 2002, but the aftermath of McLaren-Mercedes' new Silver Arrows onslaught has created panic in other teams that makes Agincourt look like a kids' game.

If Adrian Newey is not saying much, it is hardly surprising. On the track his cars are doing all the vocalising necessary, and look like doing so for some time.