Newey crashes on formation lap in Lamborghini race

2013 F1 season

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Adrian Newey suffered an embarrassing crash when he got behind the wheel in yesterday’s round of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe championship at Silverstone.

The Red Bull chief technical officer lost control of his car during the formation lap ahead of the second race of the weekend and swiped the barrier on the Hangar straight. The damage put his car out of the race.

The designer of the last three world-championship winning Formula One cars was sharing his Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Super Trofeo with Alberto Sabbatini, editor of Italian racing magazine Autosprint.

The pair finished eighth in the preceding race on Saturday. Newey started 14th and dropped back following a spin, but the appearance of the Safety Car helped them regain lost ground.

“It’s the first time I have raced since September last year,” said Newey after Saturday’s race. “I had a good battle to start with and then I had a spin – I thought I had done it myself, but I later discovered there was damage to the rear of the car, so I might have had a tap.”

His crash in race two is the latest in a series of accidents for Newey during race appearances. He was taken to hospital following a crash in a Ginetta G50 race at Snetterton in 2010 and also crashed during the 2006 Le Mans Classic.

Newey competed in last year’s Silverstone Super Trofeo round, finishing 11th and 15th in the two wet races.

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Image © Lamborghini

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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...

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40 comments on “Newey crashes on formation lap in Lamborghini race”

  1. I think the obvious statement of “stick to designing them” has to be said.

    1. It’s the Pirellis! They delaminated.

  2. Liam McShane (@)
    3rd June 2013, 11:28

    Stick to designing Adrian.

  3. There’s only one man to be blamed for that crash.

    Mark Webber

    1. Good one…As the old saying goes, Don’t give up your day job Adrian!!!

  4. I’d only just stopped laughing at his performance in the ginettas a couple of years back.

  5. I don’t wish to be rude, but maybe this is why he likes and wishes to design yachts. You can easily enjoy your work!

  6. ….and Red Bulls secret test of the Pirelli’s fails miserably.

  7. The hilarious part is you can actually hear his voice !

    1. Traverse (@)
      3rd June 2013, 14:08

      You’re a fine one to talk, Sergio Perez! ;)

  8. As the old saying goes, Don’t give up your day job Adrian!!!

  9. They aren’t using Pirelli tires, are they?

  10. Oh Adrian…

  11. I don’t know about you guys and girls, but I’ve always had this instinctive feeling of “I could drive one of these cars” (whatever formula I’m watching) perhaps not at the limit but still producing respectable lap times. This video, however, along with others such as Richard Hammond driving the Renault F1, are signs that perhaps driving fast cars is a little more tricky than it looks from the outside.

    1. Traverse (@)
      3rd June 2013, 14:01

      +1

    2. @adrianmorse
      I used to think exactly the same mate.
      I’ve done a few track days (mostly on bikes) and a couple of years ago I was at Oulton Park for a track day where a few of the BSB riders turned up to do some practising. Even though they were using bikes that were almost standard spec (not their BSB superbikes) and we were riding very similar bikes they were flying past us in the corners and doing lap times we just couldn’t get close to. At one point I was overtaken by one of them riding an R6 even though I was on a GSXR1000 :-(
      I’ve had a go of a fully kitted out SuperStock bike and I couldn’t get within 10 seconds of the lap time you’d see proper racers doing at the same track even though I’ve been riding a Fireblade on the roads for several years.

      Doing racing speeds definitely looks easier than it is !

      1. I was riding on some pee wee 50’s around a go kart track with a group of 250cc production bike racers in Australia. These guys weren’t at the front of the grid either, but they rode rings around me and my mates, on pee wee 50’s! From then on, I realised just how good these guys actually are… Although after that day, I worked out a couple of tricks they use

    3. @adrianmorse Couldn’t agree more!

      And then it makes it even more amazing how close they are at the sharp end!

      Remember doing Palmersport day and just going a few laps with the professional speeding around everyone else, braking later and power on earlier, the adjustments mid corner. He’d lapped everyone in 2 laps!

    4. Fear also plays a part. Controlling your fear will reduce your lap time considerably!

      1. If you can really control a car, i.e have the throttle control so you can drift as you please, place the car on a 20 pence at 150mph and trail brake effectively a proper racing driver isn’t that much faster. I’ve mentioned it before check out “how to overtake jenson button” on youtube.

        If you know more about a circuit and the car and you are very skilled at car control you could be faster than an f1 driver in a racing category that suits you.

        I think if given 3 years unlimited practice I could be in F1 however I’d never be as good as Raikkonen, even if I’d been training for my whole life (he’s the best natural talent imo)

        1. But I agree, step into an F1 car tomorrow and my best lap times in a red bull would be way slower than Chilton’s but I’d probably crash on the first timed lap!

        2. @DD42 Then explain how Ralph was slower than Michael Schumacher in F1 given that Ralph had been racing longer than his brother?

    5. I drove an Indycar and spent most of the time trying not to kill myself.

  12. Reminds me of when Australian Rules Footballer Jason Akermanis raced in a V8 Supercars support category a few years back.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9Il0k7ULyr4#t=48s

    Sorry Adrian but Jason wins the “Best Crash on the Warm-Up Lap” award…

    1. @mpj1994 Hadn’t seen that one before – that’s pretty embarrassing…

    2. Where did he go?? Ahaahaa, this is way better, ahah can’t stop, i means seriously where did he go?

  13. Traverse (@)
    3rd June 2013, 14:13

    Newey: “Hey, this is easy, I’m just warming up me tyre’s nice and good like, nice and-WHOAH!!!!!!!” *Crash!!Bang!!Wollop!!*

    1. Traverse (@)
      3rd June 2013, 14:24

      *tyres
      What this proves is that being a great designer and having a wealth of knowledge about the sport doesn’t necessarily transfer to the track (in the same way that being a great boxing coach doesn’t mean that you can succeed in an actual fight).

  14. I guess he had tyre degradation issues on his formation lap. But wait… this is not his F1 car…
    Weird!

  15. hehe nice to see F1 engineers getting the same coverage as drivers (on this site at least)

  16. He was “unlucky” :D

  17. Multi-21, Adrian…

  18. You’re not a real racing driver until you crash a lambo :P

  19. Shortly after that, another Lamborghini spear into the armco at the opposite side, which brought out the Red Flag. Myself and @Ajokay were there watching the marshalls rebuild the barrier.

  20. Probably worth reminding that he took to the wheel of both the RB6 and the Leyton House he designed last year for the BBC.

    He lapped both of them around Silverstone.

    1. I wonder what would have happened if the impossible happened and Newey was faster than Vettel in the RB6? Obviously at his spritely age we would be realising he’d missed an opportunity! Would Red Bull have signed him as their driver and designer so we could see a one man focused team like Brabham again?!

  21. Vettel punted him from behind… he’ll doing ANYTHING this year for a “W”

  22. He’s done this many times now. He totalled a classic GT40 a few years back, which is equally amusing and sad :-(

    Now having said that, I have heard he is pretty quick, but when he hasn’t been out for so long he should have been a bit more thoughtful (I’m not going to say careful, as careful drivers are slow)

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