Adrian Newey’s 2017 autobiography How to Build a Car is considered to be a must-read for Formula One fans. Newey is an absolute legend of the sport – he designed cars for Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull as well as doing work in IndyCar. His cars have won roughly a gazillion grand prix, ten constructor championships, and seven driver championships. Most recently, Max Verstappen won the driver’s championship in a Newey car. It can’t be overstated how important Adrian Newey is to Red Bull. Rumor has it that one of the reasons Pierre Gasly will never return to the senior team is that he slagged off Newey and a driver just can’t recover from that!
I went into this book with very little knowledge beyond “Newey cars = good.” He does a great job of setting up his own story. He writes about how he came to love cars and motorcycles as well as a good bit about his family, his schooling, and his personality in general. Through the book, he weaves in his evolving personal life, including his three marriages, the births and lives of his children, and the death of his parents. It feels organic because a job that requires so much time and travel will inevitably impact family life and it seems as though his first two wives had a lot to deal with. In fact, he mentions that after his second wife Marigold left him, Christian Horner called her to try to facilitate a reconciliation.
Newey manages to walk the line between telling his story and flat out gossiping fairly well. He worked with many familiar names and did not really paint a bad picture of anyone. The closest he came was when he wrote about Frank Williams and Patrick Head. Newey’s time at Williams came to an end when he had signed on to essentially be a third partner but kept being left out of major decisions, such as letting go of Damon Hill at the end of 1996 (the year he won the WDC!). Reading about Newey’s experience at Williams has made me reconsider Claire Williams’ tenure as deputy team principal and made me wonder how much control she actually had. Newey is also critical of Ron Denis at McLaren but Denis has been written about extensively so that wasn’t as much of a jolt for me. I was surprised at how little Newey wrote about Sebastian Vettel. Maybe because Vettel is still an active driver and Newey didn’t want to jeopardize him in any way but I thought such a beautiful partnership between his car and a driver would get more ink.
The most powerful and poignant chapters of the book were about working with Ayrton Senna and then his death. Newey designed the car that Senna died in and there was more emotion and vulnerability in his writing about that time than there was about his parents dying or his marriages breaking up. The senses of loss, guilt, and regret are palpable and I cried a little while reading that section.
For the engineers/aero physicists among us, there is a healthy bit of technical talk. I would say about 80% of it flew clear over my head but I did finish the book with a better understanding of air movement, drag, etc. In fact, at the start of the current (2022) season, I could understand why the cars were porpoising! Newey included simple diagrams in the technical sections, which helped me get the gist of what he was talking about. The book ends on a bit of a downer. Newey was not happy about the regulation change in 2014 that ended the V8 era. He seemed done with the sport and wrote of taking on new challenges. I hope that the recent aero regulations change revitalized him and maybe sparked joy for him!
I would definitely recommend How to Build a Car for people interested in learning more about F1. It is a great blend of history, technical information, and personal experiences. It’s a big book but it went quickly. Fingers crossed that he decides to put out an addendum focusing on his Red Bull years!
Nicole is a preschool teacher and doctoral student living in New York City. In the middle of a very important two week exam, she binged three seasons of Drive To Survive and fell hard for Formula 1 racing. Several Checo t-shirts and a subscription to F1TV later, Nicole is in deep! She is partial to Red Bull and McClaren, has deep admiration for Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, and is fascinated by pit strategy. She is an out and proud Sergio Pérez stan.
You can find her at @nicole713 on Twitter and @foxnews713 on Instagram
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