As he prepares to turn his back on F1 and take Red Bull into new realms, design guru Adrian Newey admits to frustration with current formula.

Whilst most of his colleagues at the official FIA press conference on Friday, were effectively saying that 'all is well, kindly move along', a weary Newey, who has designed title winning cars for three different F1 teams, voiced his frustration.

Asked if he thought it mattered that F1 cars in 2014 are slower than their 2004 counterparts, the Briton replied: "I think lap time per se is not necessarily the be-all and end-all.

"I think the critical thing is the cars should look fast," he continued, "and, if you're sitting there watching television that it should be 'wow, those guys are superheroes, I couldn't do that.'

"If I'm honest I don't think the current cars really do that," he admitted. "I think If you watch MotoGP then you certainly have that feeling, that those guys are superheroes, whereas the current crop of cars, their power-to-weight is not fantastic. Going back to the 1300hp in qualifying Formula One cars that were quite a bit lighter than they are now. Then those things, you had to bolt on some fairly special appendages to drive them in qualifying."

Though no names were mentioned, with a clear nod to the fact that Max Verstappen will make his F1 debut aged 17, the Dutch youngster having already claimed that he believes driving in big cities is more dangerous, Newey continued: "I think the fact that young drivers - no disrespect to them at all - that they can jump in and instantly be at the front, or competitive certainly, is an interesting one.

"I don't think there's an easy answer but I think it would be good to make the cars a bit more difficult to drive in truth. I think the extra torque of the new engines is good in that respect - although there's obviously lots of ways of producing more torque. I think the way the old regulations had gone was very much with a small capacity, high-revving normally aspirated is bound to be low on torque. That's my personal opinion."

His frustration was even more obvious when asked about the introduction of low-profile tyres to the sport.

"I think, and maybe I'm ignorant of what's been going on, but as far as I understand, the only reason for proposing this is to suit... to make it look more like the road tyres that that particular tyre manufacturer makes," he said. "So it's not being done for technical reasons, it's not being done for performance reasons, it's being done purely for styling and commercial reasons and I think that to me does not seem the right reason to make a technical change."

Chris Balfe

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by gturner38, 23/08/2014 16:39

"To be honest, the cars look visibly harder to drive this year than they have in quite a while, so Newey's complaints seem to be the same sour grapes we've heard from Ferrari and Vettel. When they are struggling to perform as well as they used to, suddenly the rules don't look that appealing.

On the issue of young drivers being able to jump in and be competitive, isn't that a testimony to simulation, training and data collection? With so much money involved in the lower levels, I suspect drivers are more focused on being physically prepared at a young age. Add to that the long hours a driver can spend in a simulator while comparing data with a more experienced teammate until he can roughly match it and we can see experience devalued. It's been a long time since drivers were expected to just go out and figure it out on their own.

As far as Verstappen being able to be competitive goes, we have no evidence that will be true at this point. Yes, he has 8 wins from 27 races. He also has 7 DNFs and I doubt that F3 cars are such fragile machines that he is having mechanical DNFs. For all we know we have another Grosjean or Maldonado coming in to throw cars at the scenery."

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2. Posted by FormerF1Fan, 23/08/2014 10:46

"Newey is unhappy because, contrary to the change in tyre construction that he swung last season, and the blind eyes turned on the Red Bull's illegality in previous seasons, he has got nowhere to go. His number is up. It's not surprising he wants to leave F1. He can't "bend it like Newey" any more.
"

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3. Posted by MrShadow, 23/08/2014 10:03

"There is a lot I agree with, however as a long time watcher I know that F1 has never been able to get its true speed across on TV. Only by special challenges like comparison with a touring car you get an idea of the speed difference.
The best way to understand how fast the cars are is to sit at the track and try to get them up close in your camera lense. "

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Newey bemoans F1 2014

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