Adrian Newey drives two F1 cars he designed

F1 video

Posted on

| Written by

Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey drives two F1 cars he designed in this video.

The Red Bull RB6 won the 2010 constructors’ championship and was the car Sebastian Vettel used to win that year’s drivers’ championship.

The other car is one of the first F1 machines Newey designed. The Leyton House-Judd CG901B never won a race, but came close to causing a major upset at the 1990 French Grand Prix.

Ivan Capelli led 45 laps of the race until he was slowed by an oil pump problem, and was passed by Alain Prost’s Ferrari with three laps to go (see footage from the race here).

F1 video


Browse all F1 videos

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

27 comments on “Adrian Newey drives two F1 cars he designed”

  1. Newey gets the chance to realise his genius!

  2. They should have invited Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari of that year.

  3. You know like at school sports day they finish with the parents’ race…
    Would be awesome if after the race at Brazil they had a designers race.
    Newey vs Lowe vs Fry etc
    Newey would blow them all away, even in the Leyton House.

    1. In profession mountain biking they have an unofficial mechanics race after the final championship race. It would be a hoot if they did this in F1 like you say. I wonder how many actually get to drive the cars they design.

  4. The 2009 RB6 done up in this year’s colours, ie exactly the name, but with Infinity, Total and #1 stickers.

    1. Or maybe 2010 ;)

      1. They all do this.

        Any time Lotus run the 2010 Renault, it’s done up in the Black & Gold scheme.

  5. mattshaw85 (@)
    4th November 2012, 21:04

    This is awesome. Thanks for posting!

  6. Adrian Newey is my F1 crush… for real!!! I totally went fan girl mode on went I got to see his office… ;)

  7. The Jigga has Blown exhaust on that Leyton house car!! You wiley old fox you! (look at 3:09).

    1. +1 nice observation

    2. Holy c**p! This man is truly a remarkable F1 designer.

  8. Great vid. I’m genuinely surprised that this is his first time driving a F1 car.

    1. It wasn´t back in time when a driver once argue with him about how difficult it was to drive one of his car he waited until testing was over and gt in to the car and started making laps… then he stoped and say to the driver taht it wasn´t hard…

      1. and he drove an RB5 at goodwood a few years ago

    2. @dot_com

      I’m genuinely surprised that this is his first time driving a F1 car.

      He has done so a few times before, here’s some pics:

      Newey given RB5 at Goodwood

      1. @keithcollantine – you’re right, and I thought I remembered something like that. He mentioned at 3:00 that he’s never driven an F1 car on a circuit, that’s where I got it from. My bad :)

  9. So, even his first car had unreliability issues! Can’t say I am surprised.

  10. This video makes me incredibly happy. What a brilliant thing to be able to do, and brilliant for us to be able to watch.

  11. As an engineer student, Newey really inspires me. How a man can change so much from an already technologically advanced sport, and still be so “old-school” in the way he works. So creative, so brilliant…

    it must be a tremendous felling to actually drive his creations.

  12. The CG901 is one of my all time favourites – awesome colour scheme, and interesting to hear newey state he thought they might have been able to “do a Red Bull” had the team not folded. Could you imagine a week after not qualifying if HRT or Marussia managed to lead a GP and finish on the podium? That’s what Capelli managed in 1990 at Paul Ricard, a week after not qualifying at Mexico (I think!).

    Brilliant.

  13. There is a great series of videos somewhere in which Jackie Stewart “tests” a number of cars from the early 90’s, one of which was the Leyton House CG901. He was complimentary of almost every car he drove (incredibly so in respect of the Williams FW13B) but he absolutely hated the Leyton House. He said it rode far too harshly and that the cockpit was far too cramped because the “era of the aerodynamicist had arrived in F1”, how right he was!

    1. That was the March 881, the first F1 car designed by Newey. The 891 and 901 were kind of evolution from that design. The team didnt have the budget to really make the advanced aerodynamic consept work. It was very good on smooth tracks, absolutely terrible on bumpy tracks. Then Newey went to Williams who had the resources to realise his ideas.

      1. You are quite right, it’s been a while since I watched that video so I got my years mixed up.

  14. If you enjoyed that, there’s more on this test, and Adrian Newey, in Motor Sport magazine this month:
    http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/f1/adrian-neweys-f1-evolution/
    http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/gallery/adrian-newey-in-the-leyton-house/

    They’ve filled a whole page in the magazine with profile shots of all Newey’s cars, which is quite cool. It’s amazing how similar the first Williams is to this Leyton House – or the first McLaren and the last McLaren.

    1. …and the last Williams, that should say.

  15. Cool video, looks like a lot of fun.

    It must be frustrating though to know that he can never fully ‘race it’.

Comments are closed.